Power Tends To Corrupt: Lord Acton's Study of Liberty

by Christopher Lazarski

Overview

Lord Acton (1834–1902) is often called a historian of liberty. A great historian and political thinker, he had a rare talent to reach beneath the surface and reveal the hidden springs that move the world. While endeavoring to understand the components of a truly free society, Acton attempted to see how the principles of self-determination and freedom worked in practice, from antiquity to his own time. But though he penned hundreds of papers, essays, reviews, letters and ephemera, the ultimate book of his findings and views on the history of liberty remained unwritten. Reading a book a day for years he still could not keep pace with the output of his time, and finally, dejected, he gave up. Today, Acton is mainly known for a single maxim, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In Power Tends to Corrupt, Christopher Lazarski presents the first in-depth consideration of Acton's thought in more than fifty years. Lazarski brings Acton's work to light in accessible language, with a focus on his understanding of liberty and its development in Western history. A work akin to Acton's overall account of the history of liberty, with a secondary look at his political theory, this book is an outstanding exegesis of the theories and findings of one of the nineteenth century's keenest minds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609090791
Publisher:	Northern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	340
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Christopher Lazarski is associate dean in the School of International Relations at Lazarski University, Warsaw, and author of The Lost Opportunity: Attempts at Unification of the Anti-Bolsheviks.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 3

1 Actons Life and Mission 14

Part 1 The Foundation of Liberty

2 Liberty s Ancient Roots

From Ancient Israel to the Fall of the Roman Empire 37

3 A Bumpy Road to Success

Liberty in the Middle Ages 60

4 The Great Reversal

Modern Infatuation with Power 81

Part 2 Anglo-American Liberty

5 English Liberty

The Birth of Mature Liberty 105

6 The High Point of Liberty

Colonial America and the Foundation of the Republic 125

7 The American Experience

Between the Unions Founding and the Civil War 145

Part 3 The Liberty of Revolutionary Dreams

8 The French Revolution

A Triumph of Revolutionary Tyranny 175

Part 4 Civic Versus Civil Liberty

9 Actons Ideal Polity and Its Alternatives 227

Conclusions-Acton's Legacy and Lessons 262

Notes 273

Selected Bibliography 307

Index 313

What People are Saying About This

Paul Gottfried

What is particularly unique about this book is Lazarski's very detailed analysis of Acton's historical thinking. Although Acton was an historian, who worked on the Cambridge historical studies, no other work to my knowledge examines as thoroughly as this one Acton's view of the past in terms of the goal that he saw as operative in human events.

Samuel Gregg

Especially illuminating is the exploration of Acton's ideas vis-a-vis those of Tocqueville, Burke, and Dollinger.

Editorial Reviews

It should be noted that the book demonstrates an impressive synthesis of a great variety of material from the Acton archives and thus represents a serious academic achievement within the field of Acton studies.

The Journal of Modern History

Christopher Lazarski of Warsaw University has put together a superb book on Lord Acton's history of liberty. We are treated to a deep look into the conditions of liberty within Western civilization and its polities as these have thrived or decomposed under authoritarian weight.

The University Bookman

""Lazarski has given us a very helpful discussion of Acton's ideas contextualized within a broader current of religious, political and philosophical reflection. Especially illuminating is the exploration of Acton's ideas vis-à-vis those of Tocqueville, Burke, and Dollinger. To this extent, Lazarski advances our understanding of Catholic and liberal political thought in the 19th century.

" -Samuel Gregg, Director of Research at the Acton Institute and author, most recently, of Wilhelm Ropke's Political Economy

"What is particularly unique about this book is Lazarski's very detailed analysis of Acton's historical thinking. Although Acton was an historian, who worked on the Cambridge historical studies, no other work to my knowledge examines as thoroughly as this one Acton's view of the past in terms of the goal that he saw as operative in human events.

" -Paul Gottfried, Professor of Humanities, Raffensperger Chair of the Political Science Department at Elizabethtown College, and author, most recently, of Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America

"Especially illuminating is the exploration of Acton's ideas vis-a-vis those of Tocqueville, Burke, and Dollinger.

" -Samuel Gregg, Acton Institute"

From the Publisher