Classical Liberalism: The Unvanquished Ideal

I'm amazed that nobody has reviewed this excellent little book yet. It's one of the best recent works on classical liberalism.David Conway not only presents short defenses (both economic and non-economic) of the classical liberal social order, he also deals by turns with recent critics of the "minimal State" -- including Alasdair MacIntyre, John Rawls, and John Gray -- showing in each case either (a) that their criticisms are not well-founded, or (b) that the classical liberal social order can do what they want better than their proposed alternatives. (In some cases Conway makes better sense of these critics than they can make of themselves.)The entire enterprise is conducted with a winning combination of scholarly politeness and uncompromising, pull-no-punches intellectual rigor. This is just a darn good book.Don't take my word for it; John Gray himself (a former classical liberal, sort of) endorses the book on its back cover. Even one of Conway's targets, then, regards the book as at least a helpful summary of classical liberal arguments.