The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern History

Liberalism has flamed out before. Its collapse in the late 19c left a mark on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, the art of Gustav Klimt, and the fiction of Franz Kafka. Liberalism's second collapse in the 1930s, inspired the founder of neoliberal economics Friedrich Hayek and the philosopher of science Karl Popper. These men were all Austrian, a nationality they shared with the most infamous critic of liberalism, Adolf Hitler. This course wonders why this country in the center of Europe has exercised such an outsized influence on our modern experience.