Liberty Fund Books

Description

Liberty . . . is itself the highest political end.

The unifying theme of these essays is Lord Acton's concept of liberty. Included are his two famous essays on the history of freedom ("The History of Freedom in Antiquity" and "The History of Freedom in Christianity") as are writings on the tradition of liberty in England, America, and Europe.

Reviews

Table of Contents

Biographical Note IX
Foreword XI
The Essays in This Volume XIX
List of Abbreviations XXVIII

S E C T I O N I
The History of Liberty
1 The History of Freedom in Antiquity 5
2 The History of Freedom in Christianity 29
3 Sir Erskine May’s Democracy in Europe 54

S E C T I O N I I
The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty
4 The Puritan Revolution 89
5 The Rise of the Whigs 98
6 The English Revolution 109
7 The Hanoverian Settlement 120
8 Review of Bisset’s History of the Commonwealth of England 131
9 Review of Macknight’s Life and Times of Edmund Burke 135
10 Review of Thomas Arnold’s Manual of English Literature 141
11 Review of Knight’s Popular History of England 147
12 Review of Frederick Arnold’s Public Life of Lord Macaulay 151
13 Review of Yonge’s Life of the Second Earl of Liverpool 156
14 The Queen’s Journal 158
15 Review of Bright’s History of England 62
16 Colonies 177
17 The American Revolution 189
18 The Influence of America 198
19 Review of Riethmüller’s Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries 213
20 Political Causes of the American Revolution 216
21 The Civil War in America: Its Place in History 263
22 Reports on the Civil War in America 280
23 Acton–Lee Correspondence 361
24 Review of Hudson’s Second War of Independence in America 368
25 Review of Blankenburg’s Die innern Kampfe der nordamerikanischen Union 372
26 Review of Sander’s Geschichte des vierjahrigen Bürgerkrieges 374
27 Selections from Acton’s Diary of His Trip to America in 1853 377
28 Review of The New American Cyclopedia 389
29 Review of Bryce’s American Commonwealth 395

S E C T I O N I I I
Liberty and the Modern Nation-State
30 Nationality 409
31 Cavour 434
32 Report on Current Events, January 1862 459
33 Report on Current Events, May 1862—Prussia 467
34 Report on Current Events, July 1860 478
35 “Bureaucracy” by Richard Simpson 518

Index 531