The Liberal Tradition in America: A German View

Klaus J. Hansen

Hegemonialer Liberalismus: Politisches Denken und politische Kultur in den USA, 1776–1920 (Hegemonic liberalism: Political thought and culture in the USA, 1776–1920). By Hans Vorländer. (Frankfurt: Campus, 1997. 249 pp. Paper, DM 58.00, ISBN 3-593-35634-1.) In German.	1
Now that the Cold War is over, more or less, it might be expected that the ideologies sustaining it would be dumped in the dustbin of history, just as Francis Fukuyama has attempted to do with Marxism. In fact, for those brought up to think in Marxist categories—a large segment of the Western intellectual community (this author included)—the logic inherent in the putative death of Marxism might well lead to the demise of its alternatives. Among those, pride of place goes to liberalism, which in its various guises emerged as the principal opponent of the Marxist world view in the postwar world (after the defeat and discrediting of fascism). Yet by reminding us that it was G. W. F. Hegel, not Karl Marx, who invented history as a dialectic—one culminating in the liberal state rather than the classless society—Fukuyama hopes to rescue liberalism from the fate of its antagonist.1	2
Yet scholars who regard this as an opportune moment for another study of the liberal tradition in America should pause and reflect that at the "end of history" (the title of Fukuyama's provocative manifesto) liberalism is destined to cover the earth like water, enveloping national identities. A group of contemporary Americanists who hold no brief for Fukuyama likewise reject the notion of an idiosyncratic American liberal tradition—arguing that the United States is part of a larger international community; that its political ideas, beliefs, and assumptions are inextricably entwined with those of western Europe especially; and that the United States is therefore not exempt from the dialectic and from history.2 In either case, the concept of a uniquely American liberalism is controversial, and any study asserting such uniqueness will have to face hard questions.	3
Thus Professor Hans Vorländer (who teaches political science at the Technical University of Dresden in the former German Democratic Republic) finds himself sailing into choppy waters as he takes another look at a much-studied and -analyzed American liberal tradition. There is nothing wrong with an author tacking into the wind of prevailing opinion, but Vorländer does so by way of presupposition rather than argument. Part of the explanation may be the time lag in getting the work into print. Much of the research was done in the mid-1980s at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University where Vorländer served as a John F. Kennedy fellow, and the resulting study was accepted in Germany as a Habilitationsschrift (the second dissertation required of German academics) in 1990, just a year after the "end of history."	. . .