Liberty and Equality is the first English translation of the last lecture delivered at the Collège de France by Raymond Aron, one of the most influential political and social thinkers of the twentieth century. In this important work, the most prominent French liberal intellectual of the Cold War era presents his views on the core values of liberal democracy: liberty and equality. At the same time, he provides an ideal introduction to key aspects of his thought.
Ranging from Soviet ideology to Watergate, Aron reflects on root concepts of democracy and representative government, articulates a notion of liberty or freedom as equal right as distinct from equal outcome, and discusses different kinds of liberties: personal, political, religious, and social. In search of a common truth or at least a common good, and analyzing what he perceives as the crisis of liberal democracies, Aron opens a space for reexamining the relation between liberty and equality.
Raymond Aron (1905–1983) was one of the most important political philosophers and sociologists of the twentieth century. His many books include The Opium of the Intellectuals. Samuel Garrett Zeitlin is Lecturer in Modern Intellectual History at University College London. He is the coeditor and translator of Carl Schmitt’s Early Legal-Theoretical Writings and Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation and the translator of Schmitt’s Dialogues on Power and Space and The Tyranny of Values and Other Texts.
"An important philosophical contribution highlighting the thoughts of one of the more important postwar advocates of liberalism in the 20th century."—Library Journal
"To speak politically about political ideals is to practice the rare virtue of prudence, and to combine such moderation with radicality in theoretical inquiry is the hallmark of truly philosophic statesmanship. Aron’s lecture provides a model and an ideal of such statesmanship. . . . We should be grateful to Pierre Manent for editing Aron’s final lecture, and to Samuel Zeitlin for his careful translation. There exist few more sober, reliable, or serious guides to thinking about the virtues and vices of liberalism than Raymond Aron."—Paul T. Wilford, City Journal
“A French master’s final reflections on liberty and equality, in which he asks ‘where virtue is to be found’ in free societies given over to cultivating the self rather than the common good. An Olympian meditation from a great mind, ably presented by two wise commentators, Mark Lilla and Pierre Manent.”—Michael Ignatieff, Central European University, Vienna
“Liberty and Equality is the best place to start with Raymond Aron’s thought. Foregrounding the liberties that define free societies against tyrannical ones, Aron provides a vision—still relevant today—of social and political freedom as a complex bequest to inherit and improve.”—Samuel Moyn, Yale University
“With Aron’s characteristic lucidity, sobriety, fair-mindedness, and good sense, Liberty and Equality dispels abstraction, pretense, and cant, and affirms liberty in all its complexity and difficulty. The effect is intellectually tonic, even exhilarating.”—Joshua L. Cherniss, author of Liberalism in Dark Times
“This fantastic translation of Raymond Aron’s last lecture makes available, for the first time to the English reader, a concise and meaningful overview of his fundamental ideas. It is a great introduction to Aron's thought, and a recommended read for anybody interested in thinking about liberty, from both a historical and a political perspective.”—Lucia Rubinelli, Yale University
