ABSTRACT
Liberalism presents itself today as a coherent body of theory and practice with a well-defined place in the affairs of our time. Its proponents see themselves, typically, as an extension of a long-standing tradition of moral and political reflection that is the source of what has turned out to be the authoritative interpretation of the meaning and significance of the political experience of the West in the modern era. At a time when most of the plausibility has evaporated from the competitors with which it used to do battle, it is cast as a survivor that has stood the test of time and come away vindicated, in the main, by the course that events have taken.
