Larry Siedentop
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Sir Larry Alan Siedentop CBE (born Chicago 1936) is an American-born British political philosopher with a special interest in 19th-century French liberalism. He is the author of Democracy in Europe[1] and an occasional contributor to several major British daily newspapers, including the Financial Times and The Times.
Siedentop attended Hope College, a liberal arts college in Michigan affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, and Harvard University, where he received his AM degree. He then received, as a Marshall Scholar a DPhil from the University of Oxford (equivalent to a PhD elsewhere) for a thesis on the thought of Joseph de Maistre and Maine de Biran, written at Magdalen College, Oxford, under the supervision of Sir Isaiah Berlin.
From 1965 to 1968, Siedentop was a Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, but he spent most of his academic career as a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and a University Lecturer. After retiring from Oxford, Siedentop was a Visiting Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar, Queen Victoria Eugenia Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and a Visiting Fellow in Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews.
Siedentop was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004 for services to political thought and higher education, and was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to political science.[2]
Reception
Siedentop's third book, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (2014), was praised by both The Wall Street Journal for "attempting to trace a lost genealogy" of "modern secularism, and its freedoms, as Christianity’s gift to human society,"[3] and by The Guardian as "A remarkable book that will change the way you think about our concept of ourselves."[4]
In his lifelong work on French political liberalism, Samuel Moyn reflects in the Boston Review that Siedentop, "in making the case for modern liberty," focuses on "nineteenth-century French thinkers such as Benjamin Constant, François Guizot, and Alexis de Tocqueville" who "cast liberal values such as individual freedom as complex social achievements won over long periods, to be treasured and fostered precisely because they reflect collective advancement, not merely moral truth" and which "suggests that history and experience are central to" his "story about how we came to defend liberal values, through what institutions and practices."[5]
Selected publications
Books as author
- Larry Siedentop (1994). 'Tocqueville (Past Masters)'. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192876904., (Google Books)
- Larry Siedentop (2001). 'Democracy in Europe'. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0231123778. (Google Books)
- Larry Siedentop (2014). 'Inventing the Individual (The Origins of Western Liberalism)'. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0713996449. (Google Books)
Books as editor
- translator: Francois Guizot (1828). The History of Civilization in Europe. ISBN 978-0140446654.
- (with David Miller): various (1985). 'The Nature of Political Theory'. ISBN 978-0198274735., which is a collection of essays by and about political philosopher John Plamenatz.
Papers as author
- Siedentop, Larry (1979). "Two Liberal Traditions". The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin. Oxford University Press.
Newspaper articles
- Siedentop, Larry (2009-10-14). ""A Nation Stuck in Selfish Mode: Too Much Liberalism is Quite the Wrong Diagnosis for British Decline"". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2015-01-31.
- Siedentop, Larry (2014-01-23). ""Remember the Religious Roots of Liberal Thought"". The Financial Times. London. Retrieved 2015-01-31.
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Notes
- ^ Penguin Press, 2000
- ^ "No. 61608". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2016. p. B2.
- ^ Gress, David (19 December 2014). "Where 'I' Comes From". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
- ^ Lezard, Nicholas (January 27, 2015). "Inventing the Individual: the Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
- ^ Moyn, Samuel. "Did Christianity Create Liberalism?". bostonreview.net. Boston Review. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
- Hope College alumni
- Harvard University alumni
- Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
- Fellows of Keble College, Oxford
- Living people
- Academics of the Complutense University of Madrid
- American political philosophers
- 1936 births
- Knights Bachelor
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- American emigrants to England
- Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
- People from Chicago
- British writer stubs