Michael Freeden

Like 'democracy', 'anarchy', 'liberalism is a word we bandy about without having a clue about what it means.
As it so happens, there is no one definition of liberalism. However, liberal thought and philosophy have been built up, in layers, over the last century.
It has not progressed in a straight line, but there are tangled webs that have been woven together, resulting in different interpretations of the word.
Michael Freeden's excellent book does a magnificent job in helping us understand the various strands, and the current state of the word.

Read this book,… (more)

Personally I find the VSI series to be among the best of the "short introduction" formats available out there. Rather than oversimplification or reducing ideas to a comic strip format (as opposed even to a graphic novel approach, which can and does work), these tend to be brief but thorough survey introductions to ideas, usually with a great follow-on bibliography. Think of it as a wikipedia entry on steroids and with more academic peer review.

"Ideology" does not disappoint in this regard. I found it a cogent explanation of the concept of ideology from the perspective of political science, but also reaching out to other disciplines. The strongest element for me was the historical description and contextualization of the macro and micro ideologies, within the frame of the evolution of "ideology" as an idea. The weakest area was the author's description of critical discourse analysis, which glossed over a lot. But it's hard to fault that in a book such as this - it just means that one must then look for a VSI on discourse...

For the busy professional or individual who doesn't have the luxury of going back to school but would like to explore some key intellectual movements in an academically rigorous, yet accessible, way, the VSI series is a great resource in general. For those who always wondered what politicians mean when they say "ideology" and would like to understand what liberalism versus conservatism is historically, this particular VSI book is a good start.… (more)