Abstract

Three contributions to the history of liberalism are reviewed here. First, a new edition of Benjamin Constant's well known De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes (1819), with a puzzling Preface devoted to classical liberalism. Second, the Italian edition of an old Kenneth Minogue's pamphlet against Liberal Mind (1963), i. e. against liberalism. Third, the Italian edition of Richard Epstein's Skepticism and Liberty (2003), a book representative of recent libertarianism. The three books raise maybe a common historical problem: is the classical liberalism the matrix of libertarianism only, or of liberalism too?