The Betrayal of Liberalism

Just fifty years ago the literary critic Lionel Trilling spoke of liberalism as “not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition” in American society. At the turn of the twentieth century this is clearly no longer the case, when conservative ideas have succeeded in many areas of public policy. Yet America’s mainstream institutions—the media, the academy, popular culture, religion, the law—remain largely under the sway of a liberal ethos. In this incisive collection of essays which