In Search of the Liberal Moment

"The revival of liberal thought in France during the 1970s and 1980s is one of the most remarkable developments in contemporary European intellectual history, yet it remains surprisingly understudied. In this book, British, American, and French scholars offer a fresh take on France's late twentieth-century liberal revival and examines how neo-liberalism in France developed and influenced contemporary French politics and policy. The book opens with a critical introduction which defines the notion of a French liberal renaissance, examines the existing historiography, and sets out the new questions which the contributors to this volume have sought to address. The ideological heterogeneity of the liberal renaissance is explored in Part I, which examines the origins and orientations of its left, centrist, and conservative variants. Part II critiques the liberal revival and reconsiders the significance of two figures whose work informed it: François Furet and Michel Foucault. The final part of the book examines how the neo-liberalism of the Chicago and Austrian schools of economic thought was repackaged for French audiences, and examines the emergence of new forms of French anti-liberalism which emerged in response. The book concludes with an epilogue which considers the legacy of the liberal revival in contemporary France"--