IRVING LOUIS HOROWITZ
473
dream. Cohen's liberalism takes many forms and has a plurality of au–
thentic voices and postures. What gave liberalism its resilience was less a
code of conduct or a system of
belief~
than those forms of conduct it es–
chewed and those systems of belief it condemned.
In an age where liberalism has become part of the polarity - the an–
ticonservative side of the discursive axis - Cohen's type of liberalism, a
positioning between extremes, may seem somewhat archaic, even eccen–
tric. But in Cohen's time, it was the quintessential approach to life and
letters. To those for whom notions of equity and liberty were the best,
perhaps the on ly, guarantors of minority rights and majority rules, liber–
alism made sense of the world. To the extent that such an old-fashioned
idea remains valid, Cohen's work wi ll continue to occupy a special place
in American intellectual history.
Vladimir Tismaneanu
REINVENTING POLITICS
Eastern Europe from Stalin
to
Havel
"Combines an analytical rigor and intellectual
originality that bring the order of reason into
the disorder of facts."
- Jean-Francois Revel
''The book of choice for those who want to
understand Eastern Europe in the 1990s."
- Daniel Chirot
"A superbly researched scholarly work that
reads like a first-class thriller."
- Andrei Codrescu
Available now from
THE FREE PRESS
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Inc.
Phone: 800·323·7445
866 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022
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ISBN 02·932605·2
