Larry Siedentop

Larry Siedentop, May 2013.

Sir Larry Alan Siedentop CBE (born Chicago 1936) is an American-born British political philosopher with a special interest in 19th-century French liberalism. He is the author of Democracy in Europe and an occasional contributor to several major British daily newspapers, including the Financial Times and The Times.

Siedentop attended Hope College, a liberal arts college in Michigan affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, and Harvard University, where he received his AM degree. He then received, as a Marshall Scholar a DPhil from the University of Oxford (equivalent to a PhD elsewhere) for a thesis on the thought of Joseph de Maistre and Maine de Biran, written at Magdalen College, Oxford, under the supervision of Sir Isaiah Berlin.

From 1965 to 1968, Siedentop was a Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, but he spent most of his academic career as a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and a University Lecturer.

After retiring from Oxford, Siedentop was a Visiting Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar, Queen Victoria Eugenia Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and a Visiting Fellow in Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews.

Siedentop was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004 for services to political thought and higher education, and was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to political science.

Selected publications

Books as author

• Larry Siedentop (1994). 'Tocqueville (Past Masters)'. ISBN 978-0192876904.,
• Larry Siedentop (2001). 'Democracy in Europe'. ISBN 978-0231123778.
• Larry Siedentop (2014). 'Inventing the Individual (The Origins of Western Liberalism)'. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0713996449.

Books as editor

• translator: Francois Guizot (1828). The History of Civilization in Europe. ISBN 978-0140446654.
• (with David Miller): various (1985). 'The Nature of Political Theory'. ISBN 978-0198274735., which is a collection of essays by and about political philosopher John Plamenatz.

Papers as author

• Siedentop, Larry (1979). "Two Liberal Traditions". The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin. Oxford University Press.

Newspaper articles

• Siedentop, Larry (2009-10-14). ""A Nation Stuck in Selfish Mode: Too Much Liberalism is Quite the Wrong Diagnosis for British Decline"". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2015-01-31.
• Siedentop, Larry (2014-01-23). ""Remember the Religious Roots of Liberal Thought"". The Financial Times. London. Retrieved 2015-01-31.