It is, of course, a commonplace today that “liberalism” as a peculiarly American political philosophy is on the wane. But what of the much more entrenched tradition of classical liberalism, which encompasses some of the most cherished Western values, such as respect for individual liberties and justice under law? Surprisingly, a number of intellectuals of nonleftist persuasion have come to question the classical liberal tradition, and wondered if the emphasis on individual rights has not masked other values that are important to preserving our way of life. Some of this rethinking has come from a newly resurgent communitarianism, which emphasizes the anchoring of the individual person in a “thick” sense of community, as opposed to the abstract idea of universal human community promoted by liberal theorists like John Rawls or Ronald Dworkin. Some thinkers have even begun to wonder whether liberal-democratic conceptions of state and society are just particular historical manifestations of certain Western communities, which have no universal validity or application—with the final implication being that even in the West this moment may be coming to an end.

Among this last group of pessimists is the noted British Conservative political theorist John Gray, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. Not that long ago Gray identified himself as a liberal, but now thinks that liberalism is bankrupt and can no longer function as a living tradition. In the 1980s, Gray was a bright, young Thatcherite on the libertarian fringe—libertarian ideas, a novelty in Britain, having come into Tory