lie Hal vy (1870-1937) was one of the most respected and influential intellectuals of the French Third Republic. In this densely contextualized biography, K. Steven Vincent describes how Hal vy, best remembered as the historian of British Utilitarianism and nineteenth-century English history, was also a persistent, acute, and increasingly anxious observer of society in a period defined by industrialization and imperialism and by what Hal vy famously called the "era of tyrannies."
Vincent distinguishes three broad phases in the development of Hal vy's thought. In the first, Hal vy brought his version of neo-Kantianism to debates with sociologists and philosophers and to his study of English Utilitarianism. He forged ties with Xavier L on, L on Brunschvicg, and Alain ( mile Chartier), life-long intellectual interlocutors. Together they founded the Revue de m taphysique et de morale, a continuing venue for Hal vy's reflections. The Dreyfus Affair, Vincent argues, caused Hal vy to shift his focus from philosophy to history and from metaphysics to politics. He became a philosopher-historian, less interested in abstract neo-Kantianism and more in real world action, less given to rarified debates over truth and more to investigation of how theories and their applications were situated within broader political, economic, and cultural movements. World War I and its destabilizing effects provoked the third phase, Vincent explains. As he watched reason recede before rabid nationalism and a pox of political enthusiasms, Hal vy sounded the alarm about liberal democracy's vulnerabilities.
Vincent situates Hal vy on the unsteady and narrowing middle ground between state socialism and fascism, showing how he defended liberalism while, at the same time, appreciating socialists' analyses of capitalism's negative impact and their calls for reform and greater economic equality. Through his analysis of Hal vy's life and works, Vincent illuminates the complexity of the Third Republic's philosophical, historical, and political thought and concludes with an incisive summary of the distinctive nature of French liberalism.