Classical Liberalism is a must read. For one thing, readers should not deprive themselves of the pure enjoyment of this engaging and clear-minded narrative of a broad swath of history. For another, anyone concerned about the state of democratic civil society in the West, and worried about its future, cannot afford to neglect this disarming analysis. - Prof. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Syracuse University According to the conventional history, liberalism went through two phases, laissez-faire liberalism and modern liberalism. This book rediscoveers a lost tradition of liberal thought and shows that liberalism went through three phases Classical liberalism believed in positive freedom, the right of people to manage their own affairs and to govern themselves. Victorian liberalism had two aspects. Laissez-faire liberalism accommodated the industrial economy by inventing the ideal of negative freedom freedom was simply absence of government control. There was also a more idealistic aspect of Vic