エコノミスト・エスプレッソは日曜日を除いて毎日配信され、読んでちょっと世界が分かった気になるとても優れたメールのシリーズ。夏になって現代の政治思想に関してワンコメントするコーナーもできて、これはこれで面白い。「進歩が特権者だけを益すると考えられたとき、人々はそれを信じることをやめる」「現在を失することを避けるための野心と概念が必要なのである」。医学史という（よくわからない）学問をどう設定するか、どのように概念化するのか、どのようにさまざまな国際的な箇所で設定するのか。そういうことを考えるのにいいヒントになる。
This summer we are running week-long series focusing on a single subject. Here, in the fifth and final article on the modern state of political thought, we look at liberalism
Liberalism is a historically winning formula, having engulfed the West after victories in the Glorious, American and French revolutions, and world wars both hot and cold. But today’s liberals grapple with two side-effects of success: complacency and resentment. The neoliberal economic consensus was shattered by the 2008 financial crash. Political outsiders like Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn came to the fore after liberals dismissed their candidacies as ridiculous; Brexit astonished the self-identified “liberal conservative” leader who called the referendum. The far right now claims to be the champion of free speech, long a liberal pillar. Global resentment towards elites, a consequence of growing imbalances in wealth and power, has people fleeing the established centre and taking refuge behind angry strongmen. Western liberals are discovering that, when progress is perceived to benefit only the privileged, people stop believing in it. Liberalism will endure and evolve, but it needs ambition and ideas to avoid losing this time.
