Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism

In "Politics and Passion," Walzer cogently defends the central principles of political liberalism while simultaneously subjecting them to the scrutiny of the communitarian critique. Walzer's use of concrete examples to explain his approach to navigating conflicting values in a pluralist democracy is easily the book's greatest strength. The primary weakness is the work's lack of originality and scholastic rigor. While it was a pleasant read, a serious student of political theory will find nothing here that wasn't already easily inferrable from Rawls or even simple observation. In short, this straightforward account of communitarian liberalism is relatively nuanced for such an accessible book.