Here is a question for those who study the history of ideas. Where and when does Liberalism begin? I was taught history at a Marxist university (University of Havana).

The basic idea of their explanation was that John Locke was the precursor of liberalism, Adam Smith was best of the first liberalism (which was focused on laissez faire), and 19th century figures like John Stuart Mill (who actually called themselves liberals) were part of a reformed liberalism that at least took social problems into account.

My biggest reservations about this explanation (in addition to the fact that I am admittedly not an expert on the history of Liberal thought) is that seems anachronistic to throw Locke and Smith in with Mill and others.

When does Liberalism start? Can we count Locke as an honorary liberal?

I'm also interested in reading articles on it which would give a fair summary of the development of Liberal thought.

Cheers.

Well I may as well post. I'm finishing up an undergraduate history degree, and am doing a fourth year course on historical biography. I'm doing H.P. Lovecraft, focusing particularly on the 'mythistory' of his portrayal after his death, his class and racism, and whether we can diagnose him using modern or leriod appropriate terms, if at all. Does anyone have steong opinions on anachronistic diagnosis? It seems difficult to balance the necessity of discussing H.P.'s psychological life with the fact that I'm not a psychologist and its not the 1920/30's.

Not sure if i should ask this in this thread or in tomorrow’s thread but I’ll give it a shot here today. And please, do excuse me if my grammar and spelling are faulty, I am not a native English speaker.

I am working on an historical essay on the topic of security politics during the early cold war era, but I am having a hard time choosing, or even finding a good theory to use to explain my findings. Neither I, nor my teacher have found a theory that explain what I have found and instead I have been working with the material using a comparative method. This was my teacher’s recommendation and in his words a good use method is sufficient in academic history. However, I have revived criticism for not using a theory, and therefor I come to you.

What I have found is that in the immediate aftermath of World War 2 the countries I am studying chose different paths to guarantee their security, some go with NATO and some chose to stay neutral. Over time these seemingly neutral countries tend to organize themselves in relation to the alliances rather than stay 'neutral', if that makes sense. They also go from a national to an international focus were the nations moral duties goes from 'peace in our nation' to 'peace in our region' on to 'world wide peace'. This is very basic explanation, but it might give an idea of what I have found. This change occurs during a 20-year period and culminates in the late 1960s were they all tend to discuss international peace as of equal moral importance as peace in their own countries. This change often coincide with a move away from national consensus politics from the war to some new type of non-consensus on a national level.

So, I am looking for a theory that would explain this changing standpoint, from a national focus to an international, and this in the 1940-60s period. Some type of globalization theory comes to mind, but I just don’t know what to use or whose adaptation to use. I and my teacher were discussing the problem of studying political material (I am looking mostly at policy documents), as most of the applicable theories would come from political science. If anyone out there have any ideas on a theory that could explain, schematically or in detail how, and why countries change their security political standpoints in this way, then please just give me a hint!