Joao Carlos Espada's provocative survey of a group of key Anglo-American and European political thinkers argues that there is a distinctive, Anglo-American tradition of liberty that is one of the core pillars of the Free World. Giving a broad overview of the tradition through summaries of the careers and ideas of fourteen of its key thinkers, neglected despite having been tremendously influential in the tradition of liberty, the author engages with current set ideas about the meaning of 'liberal' and 'conservative' to offer an engaging, intellectual case for liberal democracy.

João Carlos Espada is the director and founder of the Institute of Political Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal, where he is Professor of Political Studies. He earned his DPhil from the University of Oxford, and has taught at Brown, Stanford and Georgetown Universities in the US, and the College of Europe in Warsaw, Poland. He was political advisor to President Mário Soares (1986-1990) and President Cavaco Silva (2006-2011).

Introduction: Karl Popper, Winston Churchill and 'The British Mystery' Part I | PERSONAL INFLUENCES 1. Karl R. Popper: The open society and its enemies 2. Ralf Dahrendorf: Liberty and civil society 3. Raymond Plant: Social welfare without class warfare4. Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving Kristol: The moral imagination Part II | COLD WARRIORS 5. Raymond Aron: The opium of the intellectuals 6. Friedrich A. Hayek: The constitution of liberty 7. Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and pluralism 8. Michael J. Oakeshott: The conservative disposition 9. Leo Strauss: Relativism and the crisis of modernity Part III | ORDERLY LIBERTY 10. Edmund Burke: Liberty and duty11. James Madison vs. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Two views of self-government 12. Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America Part IV | THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY 13. Winston S. Churchill: The English-Speaking Peoples and the Free World Part V | POLITICS OF IMPERFECTION: THE ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADITION OF LIBERTY 14. Limited and accountable Government 15. Two kinds of rationalism 16. Liberty as conversation Postscript ON BRITAIN AND THE EUROPEAN UNION: THE MISSING DEBATE