Since the Enlightenment, liberalism as a concept has been foundational for European identity and politics, even as it has been increasingly interrogated and contested. This comprehensive study takes a fresh look at the diverse understandings and interpretations of the idea of liberalism in Europe over the last several centuries, encompassing not just the familiar movements, doctrines, and political parties that fall under the heading of "liberal" but also the intertwined historical currents of thought behind them. Here we find not an abstract, universalized liberalism, but a complex and overlapping configuration of liberalisms tied to diverse linguistic, temporal, and political contexts.

"The initiative behind the book--to sketch a history of European liberalism using the conceptual history approach--is an important one for the field. Its diverse contributions are extremely valuable, making available research and perspectives not widely known in English-language scholarship." - Jonathan Kwan, University of Nottingham

Michael Freeden is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford and Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London. His books explore modern liberal thought, the structure and history of modern ideologies, and the nature of political thinking. Javier Fernandez-Sebastian is Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of the Basque Country. He has published extensively on modern Spanish intellectual history and currently coordinates an on-going project on Iberian Atlantic conceptual transnational history. Joern Leonhard is Full Professor in Modern European History at Freiburg University. From 2007 to 2012 he was one of the Founding Directors of the School of History of the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). In 2015, he was elected member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.