Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2022.
Pp. xxi, 222. $34.95 hardcover.
In the late 1930s, during the worldwide Great Depression and as the totalitarian threat loomed large, a group of scholars gathered in Paris to discuss the fate of liberalism in a world seemingly going mad. The Lippmann Colloquium was to be the start of an ongoing effort, in which F. A. Hayek and Lionel Robbins (who did not attend but also provided extensive comments on Walter Lippmann’s manuscript) would play a significant role along with the now elder statesmen of the liberal cause such as Ludwig von Mises and Frank Knight (who was not there, but who—along with Henry Simons—had provided Lippmann with comments on his manuscript). However, these efforts never got off the ground due to World War II. The fate of liberalism and Western civilization weighed in the balance.
After the allies emerged victorious, the fate of liberalism still was unclear. Much work needed to be done to emerge from the ruins of the Great Depression and World War II, but now attention also needed to be paid to the Cold War and the Soviet superpower. In this context, F. A. Hayek hoped to get the band back together again. The attendees of the Lippmann Colloquium included the following: Raymond Aron, a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist, and political scientist; Auguste Detoeuf, a French economist; Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian and British economist and philosopher; Walter Lippmann, an American writer, reporter, and political commentator; Étienne Mantoux, a French economist; Robert Marjolin, a French economist and politician; Louis Marlio, a French economist; Ernest Mercier, a French industrialist; Ludwig von Mises, an Austro-Hungarian–born economist; Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian-British polymath; Stefan Thomas Possony, an Austro-Hungarian–born economist and military strategist; Wilhelm Röpke, a German economist; Louis Rougier, a French philosopher; Jacques Rueff, a French economist; and Alexander Rüstow, a German sociologist and economist.
