Let’s begin with a revisionist history of American diplomacy that was first published in 1959. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy by William Appleman Williams.

The reason it’s well worth reading, half a century after it was written, is that the messianic view of the world it critiques is one of the elements of 20th century liberalism. Stretching back to Woodrow Wilson, people who believe in a strong state have been tempted by the idea of spreading the American way throughout the world. It’s not enough for the government to improve American society; they want to remake the world in our image. Liberals generally embrace this Wilsonian vision. Indeed, Obama is a good Wilsonian.

Williams’s book remains important because it shows that foreign interventionism and free trade is deeply embedded in liberal history. Williams critiques American foreign policy as a foreign policy of good intentions. Liberals want to improve the world beyond our borders and broaden the rights of people overseas. The imperial temptation is something that liberals succumb to as much as conservatives.

How did the book help shape the agenda of the American left?

It challenged the Cold War mentality. Williams was one of the first to challenge the premise that the expansion of American power is by definition the expansion of freedom. He pointed to the fact that we intervene in all sorts of countries in support of tyranny. It’s one of those books whose importance was magnified by the events that came after it, like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. During the Vietnam War, as people became more aware of the fallacies of American foreign policy, they turned back to Williams for an explanation.

Let’s move on to a revisionist account of liberalism development during the Roosevelt administration – Alan Brinkley’s The End of Reform.

It pinpoints an important shift in the liberal outlook on the economy. Brinkley argues that at the beginning of the New Deal the government adopted the notion that it should reorient the economy in a more equitable manner. But, by the middle of World War II, the notion that the structure of the economy should be altered faded away.

Brinkley highlights a very important moment in the history of liberalism, a moment that plants the seeds for where we are today. For example, President Obama, whom I admire in many ways, quickly gave up the idea of actually changing the structure of our economy. Obama entered office in the midst of the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression. He could have said: We gotta rethink things. Or he could have said: We gotta get things back on track. He took the second option. That replays what happen in the Roosevelt administration and what Brinkley is talking about – the abandonment of the notion of structurally changing economic life.

Why did that shift occur?

Partly because of the resurgence of Republicans and conservative Democrats. Partly because the government had to work hand-in-hand with the corporations to mobilise resources during World War II.