![Lost History of Liberalism with Helena Rosenblatt [PODCAST]](https://4liberty.eu/phidroav/2026/08/Liberal-Europe-Podcast-Format-1-8-1024x1024.jpg "Lost History of Liberalism with Helena Rosenblatt [PODCAST]")
What are the most common misconceptions about liberalism? Why has the history of liberalism as an inspirational ideal been lost? How did liberalism come to mean so many different and conflicting things? And what is the historical relationship between ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’? Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Helena Rosenblatt, a Distinguished Professor of history, political science and French at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her most recent book is “A Lost History of Liberalism from Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century” (Princeton University Press, 2018). She is also the author of “Rousseau and Geneva from the First Discourse to the Social Contract” (Cambridge University Press, 1997), and “Liberal Values: Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Religion” (Cambridge University Press, 2008) .
Leszek Jazdzewski (LJ): What are the most common misconceptions about liberalism?
Helena Rosenblatt (HR): The primary misconception is that liberalism is a singular, monolithic concept. It is surprising that people seem to have their own personal definitions of what liberalism is. There are numerous distinct definitions circulating, which has caused significant misunderstandings regarding both the people involved and its overall history.
Another major misconception is the idea that liberalism is a predominantly Anglo-American tradition. We hear frequently that liberalism was born in England and subsequently came to America. These narratives tend to privilege Anglo-American thinkers. Places like France and Germany are left out of the narrative, and French and German thinkers are generally excluded from the canon.
Rectifying this omission is one of the main objectives of my book. I set out to tell the story of where liberalism truly originated and how it came to have these different interpretations and meanings around the world.
LJ: Why has the history of liberalism as an inspirational ideal—meaning not just freedom-loving and civic-minded, but also generous and compassionate—been lost?
HR: From the very beginning, liberalism was explicitly a moral ideal. It was deeply connected to showing generosity. Loving freedom was exceptionally important, but generosity and compassion have always been core elements of liberalism.
Today, when we speak of liberalism, we tend to focus almost exclusively on individual rights, viewing it as an ideology that centers on the rights of the individual. Consequently, this longer, more generous history has dropped out of the narrative.
This shift occurred primarily during the Cold War. The rise of fascism, communism, and Nazism in Europe, followed by the Cold War, made it vital for the West—particularly for the powerful Anglo-American alliance—to differentiate itself from totalitarianism and Stalinism. Proponents felt compelled to emphasize the specific part of the liberal tradition that secures individual rights and property rights. When facing a Stalinist regime, the prevailing message became that liberalism stands for the rights of the individual against the state, viewing the state as dangerous and needing to protect the citizen from it.
Liberals have always favored protecting individual rights, including a free press, free speech, and religious freedom. However, there used to be a deliberate balance between those protections and the opposite side of the philosophy, which emphasizes compassion, generosity, citizenship, obligations, and responsibilities. With the rise of totalitarianism, the idea that citizens might have duties and obligations, or that governments should get involved with managing them, became a highly dangerous concept.
LJ: Can you talk a little bit about the original meaning of the word ‘liberal’, which – as you wrote – described a person of generous sentiments and an enlarged, expansive mind, long before the term ‘liberalism’ was coined?
HR: The word ‘liberal’ goes back to ancient Rome and Latin, with the core root being ‘liber‘. People are quick to say that ‘liber‘ means freedom, and it did, but it also meant generosity.
To be ‘liberal’ in ancient Rome meant to possess the noble qualities and correct values of a citizen. A citizen was expected to love freedom, but also to have compassion for fellow citizens, to be civic-minded, and to be generous rather than selfish. Selfishness was viewed as a quality for slaves. Generosity and commitment to the common good were the defining values of a citizen.
The corresponding noun ‘liberalism’ did not exist as a term then, as it was only coined around 1813. Before ‘liberalism’, there was the noun ‘liberality’. To show ‘liberality’ was precisely to demonstrate those high-minded values and virtues of a citizen. Over time, this core meaning of combined generosity and freedom remained within the term, even as it slightly changed according to circumstances over hundreds of years.
LJ: How did being ‘liberal’ start to shift away from those original virtues and begin to mean something else, transforming from an individual virtue into a set of political predicaments in the late 18th and early 19th centuries?
HR: Originally, the word described the values of an individual person. Over time, the use of the word expanded so that it started to denote a way of thinking and eventually a type of society.
In the United States, George Washington spoke of a ‘liberal’ society and a ‘liberal’ constitution. By a ‘liberal’ constitution, he meant a tolerant, open, and inviting one. At that stage, it did not yet mean a strict number of political or constitutional concepts, but it carried a sense of nobility rooted in virtue.
The transition into a distinct political idea accelerated when Lafayette returned to France. It started with the concept of toleration, but eventually became associated with the constitutional principles of thinkers like Benjamin Constant. The resulting meanings became the constitutional principles that we now associate with the core values of liberal democracy.
Because this development was occurring in France during the revolution, proponents were up against a monarchy. Consequently, they demanded a constitutional monarchy and a representative system. Civic equality was a massive component. The notion that everyone has equal civic rights—though not yet equal political rights—was revolutionary. Proponents also demanded freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and eventually the separation of church and state. These core principles started to be called ‘liberal’ in France during the 1790s.
This heavy emphasis on France might surprise people because of the common perception that ‘liberalism’ is an Anglo-American tradition stretching back to the Magna Carta. However, when you look at the word itself, the theorizing of what we call ‘liberalism’—accepted as such by both its defenders and its critics—originally happened in France. In fact, when the word ‘liberal’ was first used politically in England and in America, it was often spelled as ‘libérale‘ with a French suffix and accent to indicate its foreign origin. It was viewed as an entirely new way of using the term.
LJ: Can you explain how liberalism has been shaped by its historical battle, first with absolutism and subsequently with the forces of reaction?
HR: Liberalism was very much shaped in the end also by the two Napoleons. Proponents are shaped by their adversary, so to speak. Early liberals did not even necessarily consider themselves enemies of the king. They wanted a constitutional monarchy mainly on the English model.
Then the revolution spun out of control, much to their displeasure and horror, into the Terror, and ended up with Napoleon. This outcome was a great tragedy to liberals. French liberals at first believed in Napoleon, thinking that maybe he could bring peace to France and the continent, and they thought that he would save the revolution. He made all the right noises, so most of them actually even supported his coup, but then they quickly realized that that was a mistake.
The cluster of concepts that comes together in 1813 and is called ‘liberalism’ is really designed to make someone like Napoleon never possible again. Unfortunately, it does happen again, as we see even today, where an individual who is in principle democratically elected, or at least confirmed by plebiscite the way both Napoleons were in France, can bypass accountability. Such a leader tells the electorate that they embody them directly, claiming that representative institutions, judicial systems, and pieces of paper are just stopping progress. It is a demagogue and a dictator.
This threat is what really made liberals like Benjamin Constant, Madame de Staël, and others want to create a constitutional system that would give some power to the people, would be accountable to the people, and would make sure that they would never get a despot again. Despite their efforts, it happened again with Napoleon III, which generated another wave of liberals reacting against that.
The Catholic Church was another adversary that was perhaps the most powerful adversary for liberals throughout the 19th century. The papacy came around very late to accept religious freedom, which, as stated, was a core concern of liberals from the very beginning. This friction is understandable in the case of France because for centuries the Catholic Church had supported the absolute monarchy. Interestingly enough, Protestants are highly over-represented according to their actual numbers in liberal movements, particularly in France, Germany, England, and America.
LJ: Given that the history of liberalism is so deeply intertwined with French thought and politics, why is the word itself virtually banished from the French political lexicon today, where being ‘liberal’ is often reduced to a narrow economic pejorative?
HR: The word is a liability, and individuals cannot easily use it. You cannot be a ‘liberal’ in France or in America without it being a liability. Proponents in the American Democratic Party generally who are a little bit left of center avoid the word ‘liberal’ for diametrically opposed reasons.
In France, to be ‘liberal’ is to be a bit right of center, denoting an allegiance to free markets, globalism, small government, and that kind of thing. In America colloquially, it means the opposite, signaling more government intervention, a welfare state, and those sorts of things. The word means completely different things in the two places, which makes it hard to have a conversation if participants do not realize what is going on.
Both the free-market liberals and the more government regulation liberals all come from the same place, but at a certain time they diverged into two streams in their reaction to the Industrial Revolution, to urbanization, and to the problems that came along with that. They had two different approaches to how to deal with the new crisis of pauperism and endemic poverty in the cities.
Some liberals advocated for more government intervention. Others said a laissez-faire approach and even more deregulation was the way to go. You had these two streams, and the government intervention one became dominant in America. That is why it means one thing in America and something else in France and most of the rest of the world. America is an outlier in what ‘liberal’ means colloquially.
The so-called libertarians in America today, whom some people call neoliberals, say they are the true liberals. They assert that democratic liberal types are misusing the word and that they are the true classical liberals and orthodox liberals. Meanwhile, the term ‘neoliberalism’ is generally a pejorative that tends to be used, at least in America, as an insult word. Nobody really wants to be called a neoliberal, especially in the academic world.
LJ: How did liberalism come to mean so many different and conflicting things, and how did it become primarily associated with economics, which was not the case for most of the history of this thought?
HR: That is exactly right. I found this wonderful story and quotation of Herbert Hoover, who was president during the crash. He was a real free market, laissez-faire sort of individual, and he got so frustrated with the fact that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was using the word to describe himself and his policies.
People working for Roosevelt kept calling him a ‘liberal’, and they asserted that the New Deal was ‘liberal’, and all of this was ‘liberal’. There is literally a speech where someone uses the word ten or twelve times to really reinforce the fact that it is the New Deal people who are the ‘liberals’. Herbert Hoover just says that they can have the word, because he is fed up with it and feels they have polluted it and raped it of all meaning. He tells them to go ahead and take the word.
So there was this fight, and that is interesting because there is something about the word that was very attractive to people. It is a word that continues to mean generous and freedom-loving, and therefore people wanted to use it. Maybe today politicians avoid it, and that is interesting too. Words are important; they are tools and rhetorical devices, and it is good to be careful with our use of them.
LJ: Can you explain the historical relationship between ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’, particularly why early liberals mistrusted direct public power and how they eventually came to terms with it?
HR: In America at least, people use ‘liberal democracy’ and ‘democracy’ interchangeably as if they are the same thing. That is a little bit sloppy and lazy. They do not actually come together all that easily, and they come together late in history.
‘Democracy’, of course, is a much older tradition that goes way back to Greece, and originally meant people power. It is derived from demos and kratos, signifying the power of the people. For approximately two thousand years, it was considered the worst kind of government possible, equivalent to anarchy, because it was direct government. Proponents did not develop the concept of representative ‘democracy’ until quite late.
Even as late as the 18th century, individuals started using the word ‘democracy’ in all these different ways. We do too, as we do not always mean a political regime or system; we can mean an economic system that is more accessible and egalitarian. When individuals in France in 1820 said they were a ‘democracy’, they obviously did not mean that everybody had a vote. They meant that there was civil equality and that people had the same rights under the law.
During the revolution, which is when ‘liberalism’ is born, liberals witnessed the crowd activity. They saw what they considered the irrational behavior and the violence of the crowds. They saw that the public was not only behaving irrationally and violently, but was also gullible when a dictator like Napoleon came along. To give the people power directly would have been a very foolish, incomprehensible thing to them.
What was needed was liberalism, which would make democracy safe over time and tame it. Proponents hoped to achieve, through the representative system, rule by the wise—an aristocracy not of blood, but of capacity. Usually, that concept went along with property requirements for voting and even stiffer ones for holding office. Only over time did liberals come to accept universal male suffrage, and even later, universal suffrage that would include women. They were not democrats originally; they were, to a certain extent, elitists. Possibly we can understand why, given the widespread illiteracy and poverty of the population. It made no sense to them at all to get twenty million people to vote, much less to directly legislate.
LJ: Given that the concept of liberalism is so dynamic and deeply intertwined with the political realm, does it make sense to try to return to the original meaning of the word ‘liberal’ as denoting generosity, and what sort of ‘liberalism’ do we need today?
HR: There is a distinct lack of imagination right now, as well as a lack of aspiration. Proponents are not generating enthusiasm. In America, where I am right now as we speak, getting young people involved with the democratic process is difficult, and most of us feel that we are in a dangerous free fall with the state of our ‘liberal democracy’ right here.
Reminding people of these sorts of values is vital, and individuals are yearning for voices that speak about this. It is not just about selfish individual rights. It is more about finding something that binds us, something worth fighting for, and something worth saving.
Looking at the past helps us notice that there were some really good, very noble people who fought very hard and thought very deeply about this thing we call ‘liberal democracy’. It is worth fighting for. We have to be generous, give of ourselves, and be compassionate. That is really the core of the meaning of ‘liberal democracy’.
Helena Rosenblatt will be a guest during this year’s edition of the Freedom Games, a festival of ideas co-organized by the European Liberal Forum on October 23-25, 2026, in Lodz, Poland. Find out more: igrzyskawolnosci.pl/event/igrzyska-wolnosci-2026
This podcast is produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with the Movimento Liberal Social and the Fundacja Liberté!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are responsible for the content or for any use that be made of.