The Bounds of Liberalism: The Fragility of Freedom

The core issue of this work is how far the West may need to modify or extend the liberal philosophy informing its responses to the multiple world crisis it is now attempting to deal with. The Bounds of Liberalism: The Fragility of Freedom is the third contribution to an informal trilogy which seeks to reconnoitre the salient issues involved in building a durable world peace. The first was the well-received Engaging the Cosmos: Astronomy, Philosophy and Faith (2006) and the second the highly commended The Geography of Human Conflict: Approaches to Survival (2009). Review endorsements for the trilogy, which addresses very comprehensively the challenges of our times, are provided within the book. This last steed in the troika will consider how liberal democracy can best sustain its dynamic, externally and internally, in a world liable to become progressively more vexatious in manifold ways. One must reckon with ambient stresses along with the internal contradictions of liberalism as such, not least of "social liberalism". It provides a review of the strengths and weaknesses of Social Liberalism that, broadly speaking, occupies the ground between moderate Right and moderate Left. The work is informed by the conviction that the world, half a century hence, will be either considerably better than now (freer, more peaceable, more enriching …) or else a good deal worse. Those concerned to effect the former outcome should promote the spread among emergent states of well-founded democracy. But they must also look stringently at how well democratic institutions may function in the mass societies of the West. History indicates that pell-mell cultural change, constant ecological impoverishment, and endless leap forwards in applied science may not augur well for stability and peace. The author's accepted expertise in History, International Security, Planetary Development and Applied Geophysics means he can address a variety of issues such as: climate change and resource depletion; community decay, data saturation, the future of universities, democratic devolution, leaders and led, and medical philosophy; and biowarfare, the management of Near Space, international political economy, and a planetary It is contended that we are not approaching the "end of any meaningful sense. Instead we are passing through, at pace, a transition as profound as that between the Old and New Stone Ages. Our perspectives on the immediate future by free-ranging speculation about what mankind can antic the next few centuries.