Skip content
Why Liberalism Works by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Why Liberalism Works

How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All

$26.24

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Janet Metzger

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 14 hours 59 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

An insightful and passionately written book explaining why a return to Enlightenment ideals is good for the world

The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by eighteenth-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone.



With her trademark wit and deep understanding, McCloskey shows how the adoption of Enlightenment ideals of liberalism has propelled the freedom and prosperity that define the quality of a full life. In her view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism—and the fixation of the left on inequality is counterproductive. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy that depends on the power of rhetoric rather than arms and on ethics, free speech, and facts for us to thrive.

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has been distinguished professor of economics and history and professor of English and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, including Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Bringing the experience of nearly four decades of theater, film, and television acting to audiobook narration, AudioFile Earphones Award winner Janet Metzger has deftly interpreted the many-faceted characters of Southern fiction writers such as Sarah Addison Allen, Patti Callahan Henry, and Kristy Woodson Harvey. As an award-winning documentary narrator and a master teacher at Emory University School of Law, where she teaches storytelling and persuasion, Janet brings both warmth and authority to nonfiction as well. Whether she is narrating a Southern romance, a heroine's journey, or an innovative take on business, Janet's warm and inviting voice will draw you into the story.

Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting