1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910345146803321

Autore

Morefield Jeanne <1967->

Titolo

Covenants without swords [[electronic resource] ] : idealist liberalism and the spirit of empire / / Jeanne Morefield

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, N.J., : Princeton University Press, c2005

ISBN

1-282-08739-8

9786612087394

1-4008-2632-2

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (267 p.)

Disciplina

320.51

Soggetti

Liberalism

Internationalism

Equality

Hierarchies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-248) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Oxford liberalism and the return of patriarchy -- An "oddly transposed" liberalism -- Mind, spirit, and liberalism in the world -- Nationhood, world order, and the "one great city of men and gods" -- Sovereignty and the liberal shadow -- Liberal community and the lure of empire.

Sommario/riassunto

Covenants without Swords examines an enduring tension within liberal theory: that between many liberals' professed commitment to universal equality on the one hand, and their historic support for the politics of hierarchy and empire on the other. It does so by examining the work of two extremely influential British liberals and internationalists, Gilbert Murray and Alfred Zimmern. Jeanne Morefield mounts a forceful challenge to disciplinary boundaries by arguing that this tension, on both the domestic and international levels, is best understood as frequently arising from the same, liberal reformist political aim--namely, the aim of fashioning a socially conscious liberalism that ultimately reifies putatively natural, preliberal notions of paternalistic order. Morefield also questions conventional analyses of interwar thought by resurrecting the work of Murray and Zimmern, and by linking their approaches to liberal internationalism with the ossified



notion of sovereignty that continues to trouble international politics to this day. Ultimately, Morefield argues, these two thinkers' drift toward conservative and imperialist understandings of international order was the result of a more general difficulty still faced by liberals today: how to adequately define community in liberal terms without sacrificing these terms themselves. Moreover, Covenants without Swords suggests that Murray and Zimmern's work offers a cautionary historical example for the cadre of post-September 11th "new imperialists" who believe it possible to combine a liberal commitment to equality with an American Empire.