This is a valuable and much-needed book, if for no other reason than its author (although there are other reasons). Alan Dershowitz, probably the most famous attorney in America, and unquestionably one of our greatest Constitutional scholars, has been a genuine liberal Democrat throughout his career, and has made no secret of his support (sometimes tepid, usually enthusiastic) for every Democratic president in his lifetime. At the same time, he has drawn the ire, and sometimes the fury, of today's "progressives," for two reasons: his support for Israel, and his opposition to the impeachment of President Trump — or any president, excepting Nixon, who dodged impeachment by resignation. Right-wingers dislike him for other reasons, including his defense of O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, Patty Hearst, and Julian Assange. His liberal bona fides were always accepted by the left, until he opposed the Trump impeachment.

And that's the problem he addresses in this book. American politics has become so hideously polarized, at both extremes, that there seems to be no room for an old-fashioned liberal, or even an old fashioned conservative: both Dershowitz and William F. Buckley Jr. (were he still alive) would be dismissed as irrelevant and "politically incorrect" by the Antifa/BLM crowd on the one hand, and by the so-called "Proud Boys" on the other. This kind of intolerance might be endurable if it was merely the grouchiness and fanaticism of a few fringe groups. But now it reaches into government itself: think AOC and "the Crew," for example. Such people as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Rand Paul are shining lights, and tend to be more libertarian than anything else, but such lights are few and far between (and Kennedy isn't even a part of the government). Extremism is the order of the day.

Dershowitz here makes the case for old-fashioned liberalism of the FDR-LBJ stripe. He devotes an entire chapter to John Stuart Mill, who he regards as the father of genuine liberalism, and another chapter to the question of "what is the source of our rights?" He rejects the idea that our rights are God-given, which he finds untenable in a religiously pluralistic society, and also dismisses the concept of "natural rights" (or "natural law") as inadequate. Instead, he puts forth his own theory, which I would call a radical democratic (small "D") view, saying that our rights come from the people themselves, and from human experience. I disagree with this view; in fact, I disagree with much of what Dershowitz says and writes. But it's better than Marxism or fascism, both of which Dershowitz fears might be looming on the horizon if today's extremism(s) go unchecked.

This book is a plea for what used to be a commonplace: centrist liberalism, instead of the radical "progressivism" of today's left, or what is often called the "populism" of President Trump or Bernie Sanders. I don't think that his "sensible liberalism" is the answer to our problems, but in this book he displays the intellectual and ethical rigor which has long defined his philosophy. The book is a tonic, in a time of great political sickness.

Hardly a perfect book, but highly recommended. ( )