Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism

From Larry Siedentop, acclaimed author of Democracy in Europe, Inventing the Individual is a highly original rethinking of how our moral beliefs were formed and their impact on western society today.

Praise for the Book

"Magisterial, timeless, beautifully written ... Siedentop has achieved something quite extraordinary. He has explained us to ourselves" – Spectator

Overview

This ambitious and stimulating book describes how a moral revolution in the first centuries AD—the discovery of human freedom and its universal potential—led to a social revolution in the west. The invention of a new, equal social role, the individual, gradually displaced the claims of family, tribe, and caste as the basis of social organization.

Larry Siedentop asks us to rethink the evolution of the ideas on which modern societies and governments are built. He argues that the core of what is now our system of beliefs emerged much earlier than we think.

Key Arguments

Siedentop explores the roots of liberalism, emphasizing the following concepts:

• Belief in individual liberty
• Fundamental moral equality of individuals
• Equality as the basis of a legal system
• Representative government as the only fitting form for such a society

He argues that these principles were pioneered by Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages, who drew on the moral revolution carried out by the early church. According to Siedentop, it was the arguments of canon lawyers, theologians, and philosophers from the eleventh to the fourteenth century—rather than the Renaissance—that laid the foundation for liberal democracy.

Contemporary Relevance

Siedentop contrasts liberal ideas with beliefs flourishing in other parts of the world:

• Fundamentalist Islam, which denies the equality of women and is often ambiguous about individual rights and representative institutions.
• Quasi-capitalist China, where utilitarianism enshrines state interests even at the expense of justice and liberty.

Such beliefs may foster populist forms of democracy, but they are not liberal. In the face of these challenges, Siedentop urges that understanding the origins of our own liberal ideas is more than ever an important part of knowing who we are.

About the Author

LARRY SIEDENTOP was appointed to the first post in intellectual history ever established in Britain, at Sussex University in the 1970s. From there, he moved to Oxford, becoming Faculty Lecturer in Political Thought and a Fellow of Keble College.

His writings include:

• A study of Tocqueville
• An edition of Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe
• Democracy in Europe, which has been translated into a dozen languages

Siedentop was made CBE in 2004.