Three Revolutions of Liberty: England, America, and France Philippe Raynaud, Nadia Urbinati, Jeremy Jennings and Richard Wolin April 13, 2011

Over the last few decades, the revival of political liberalism has gone hand in hand with a reassessment of the commonalities and differences subtending the eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic revolutions. A comparative perspective allows us to better appreciate the standpoints of both the revolutions’ leading intellectual progenitors (Locke, Montesquieu, and Jefferson) as well as of their leading critics (Edmund Burke, Madame de Stael, and Alexis de Tocqueville). In Three Revolutions of Liberty (2009), Philippe Raynaud, one of the protagonists of the French liberal revival, has fashioned a unique interpretation of the intellectual lineage that defines this trans-Atlantic revolutionary heritage – a heritage that, in so many ways, continues to define the central terms of modern politics. Join Prof. Raynaud (Political Science, University of Paris II), Nadia Urbinati (Political Science, Columbia University), Jeremy Jennings (Political Science, Queen Mary, University College London), and Richard Wolin (Political Science and History, The Graduate Center, CUNY) for a vigorous debate on the implications and relevance of the revolutionary legacy for both the history of ideas as well as contemporary politics.