Patrick J. Deneen is Professor of Political Science and
holds the David A. Potenziani Memorial College Chair of
Constitutional Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His
previous books include The Odyssey of Political
Theory, Democratic Faith, and a number of edited volumes. He
lives in South Bend, IN.
"Why Liberalism Failed offers cogent insights into the loss of
meaning and community that many in the West feel, issues that
liberal democracies ignore at their own peril."—President Barack
Obama
"Deneen's book is valuable because it focuses on today's central
issue. The important debates now are not about policy. They are
about the basic values and structures of our social order."—David
Brooks, New York Times
"Bracing. . . . Deneen comes as a Jeremiah to announce that
Tocqueville's fear that liberalism would eventually dissolve all
[its] inheritances . . . may now be fully upon us."—Ross Douthat,
New York Times
"Mr. Deneen has written a serious book offering a radical critique
of modernity, and he has taken the trouble to do so both concisely
and engagingly. His insights as well as his crotchets in pursuit of
his argument are often arresting. He writes compellingly on the
growth of government in tandem with the spread of liberal market
principles, for example, noting that a supposed preference for
'limited government' has been no match for the demand for expanding
government enforcement of individual rights."—Tod Lindberg, Wall
Street Journal
“One of the most talked-about books of the moment.”—Scott Reyburn,
The New York Times
"[Deneen's] exhortations to embrace the local over the global and
the cultural over the political are sound and well
expressed."—Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal, Books on
Politics: Best of 2018
"Few books challenge the core assumptions of modern liberalism as
unapologetically as the suggestively titled Why Liberalism Failed
by Patrick Deneen."—Shadi Hamid, TheAtlantic.com
“Deneen makes an excellent case for the flaws of liberal theory and
practice… [He] also presents an excellent place to begin in
understanding (but also critiquing) the new National Populism.”
—Joshua Penduck, Church of England Newspaper
Finalist for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s 2018
Conservative Book of the Year prize, the Paolucci Book Award.
“Liberalism is clearly in everybody’s sights, and Why Liberalism
Failed will be an important contributor to the conversation,
suggesting that we cannot work within the existing paradigm
anymore. The philosophers will not solve our problems; working with
our neighbors will.”—Joshua Mitchell, Professor of Political
Theory, Georgetown University
"Deneen writes with clarity, candor and superior scholarship to
create one of the most absorbing political philosophy books of the
past decade. No one who reads it, no one who considers its
substance, will be able to think about the dynamics and the
consequences of the American democratic experiment in quite the
same way."—Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, author of Author of
Strangers in a Strange Land
"This courageous and timely book is a major contribution to
understanding the rude awakening in the Trump moment. It
shows that we must transcend the death grip of the two oscillating
poles of classical liberalism (of Republican and Democratic
parties) and examine the deep assumptions that hold us
captive. It also reveals that if we remain tied to
liberalism's failure, more inequality, repression, and spiritual
emptiness await us."—Cornel West, Professor of the Practice of
Public Philosophy, Harvard
"Patrick Deneen is a probing and gifted cultural critic, afire with
controlled moral passion. Why Liberalism Failed provides a bracing
antidote to the pieties of left and right by showing how an
impoverished, bipartisan conception of liberty has imprisoned the
public life it claims to have set free. One could not ask for a
timelier or more necessary enrichment of our depleted political
discourse."—Jackson Lears, Board of Governors Distinguished
Professor of History, Rutgers University
“A path-breaking book, boldly argued and expressed in terms that
might justifiably be called prophetic in character.”—Wilfred M.
McClay, G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty,
University of Oklahoma
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