Domenico Losurdo il 5 maggio al King's College di Londra

DOMENICO LOSURDO COMES TO LONDON TO DISCUSS HIS NEW BOOK ‘LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY’

Thursday, May 05, 2011, 7.30pm - King’s College London, Edmund J. Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS

‘Liberalism: Slavery, imperialism and exploitation’

A panel discussion and book launch for LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY with Domenico Losurdo, Robin Blackburn, Richard Seymour, and chair Stathis Kouvelakis.

Hosted by the KCL European Studies Department in association with Verso Books

http://www.versobooks.com/events/141-liberalism-slavery-imperialism-and-exploitation RSVP: marketing@verso.co.uk

DOMENICO LOSURDO is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Urbino, Italy. He is the author of many books in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin. In English he has published HEGEL AND THE FREEDOM OF MODERNS and HEIDEGGER AND THE IDEOLOGY OF WAR.

ROBIN BLACKBURN is the author of THE AMERICAN CRUCIBLE: SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS. He teaches at the University of Essex in the UK and at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is a contributor to NEW LEFT REVIEW and a member of its editorial committee.

RICHARD SEYMOUR is the author of THE LIBERAL DEFENCE OF MURDER. He lives, works and writes in London. He runs the Lenin’s Tomb website, which comments on the War on Terror, Islamophobia and neoliberalism.

STATHIS KOUVELAKIS is the author of PHILSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM KANT TO MARX. He is a Reader in Political Theory at King’s College London.

PRAISE FOR LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY BY DOMENICO LOSURDO

‘Devastatingly exact in his dismantling of a Whiggish optimism, Losurdo thankfully avoids the historical dead-endism of postmodern critiques.’ Greg Grandin, author of FORDLANDIA

‘Anyone who thinks they know the history of liberalism will be surprised – and riveted – by this book. Every page is an experience.’ Corey Robin, author of FEAR: THE HISTORY OF A POLITICAL IDEA

In this definitive historical investigation of the formation of liberalism from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Domenico Losurdo overturns complacent and self-congratulatory accounts by showing that, from its very origins, liberalism and its main thinkers—Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, Sieyès and others—have been bound up with the defense of the thoroughly illiberal policies of slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and elitism.

Losurdo probes the inner contradictions of liberalism, also focusing on minority currents that moved to more radical positions, and provides an authoritative account of the relationship between the domestic and colonial spheres in the constitution of a liberal order.
ISBN: 978 1 84467 639 4 / $34.95 / £22.00 / Hardcover / 384 pages

For more information or to buy the book visit:

http://www.versobooks.com/books/960-liberalism

http://www.versobooks.com/books/126-the-american-crucible

http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder

http://www.versobooks.com/books/733-philosophy-and-revolution

All books will be available to buy at the event at a discounted price.