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This article argues that moderation is a difficult, complex, and elusive concept that challenges our political imagination. It has several faces—epistemological, moral, constitutional, political and religious—and forms a rich intellectual tradition that has yet to be explored in all its complexity. Moderation is "the silken string that runs through the pearl-chain of all virtues" (Joseph Hall). As such, it ought to be examined not only as a virtue but also as a social practice, an intellectual sensibility, a way of life, a particular ethos, and a set of concrete institutions. Finally, moderation is best understood in relation with its synonyms (prudence, civility, compromise) and antonyms (extremism, fanaticism, zealotry). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century: by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2022, 360 pp., $29.95/£25.00 (cloth) Considering its emphasis, authoritarian dictators who govern by spin rather than fear, it is of particular significance currently since the world faces several such individuals, and it seems that traditional Western democracies do not adequately know how to deal with them. The fifth chapter highlights how modern dictatorships co-opt democracy and its defence as a hallmark of the new "Spin Dictator.". [Extracted from the article]

Chapter 7 goes back to chronicling various European discussions and experiments concerning "liberalism" that took place, primarily, around the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, it is probably true that in the author's country of residence, the United States, even highly educated academics may not be aware of the French, Swedish, Spanish, Italian and, above all, German genealogy of "liberalism", which is commonly regarded as a British invention, if not even as being as American as pizza pie. Chapter 3 addresses the period between 1830 and 1848, during which a strenuous tug-of-war between self-declared "liberals" and Europe's reactionary forces kept occurring in a great variety of social settings. [Extracted from the article]