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I'm afraid I can only describe this as a pretty big disappointment, especially with all the attention it's gotten. That Yale published it perhaps confirms Deneen's own accusations of decadence in the academy. In short, Deneen makes the argument that actual Liberalism also included anti-Liberal Statism and the two worked as twins to offer atomization-as-individual liberty and the sham of representative government (Deneen uses the shorthand of democracy) to distract the masses and make them feel like they have a say, meanwhile an ever-expanding government uses a managerial, administrative state to truly disenfranchise all outside the apparatus of the state. And we should go back to the good ol' days of Christianity and local community, except we all know we can't do that.
The read is so frustrating, it's hard to know where to begin. Stylistically, Deneen goes for the multi-syllabic big words precisely where his arguments are weakest. Substantively, he clearly demonstrates a complete ignorance of what Liberalism actually is, despite professing to know the difference between actual freedom-and-liberty Liberalism (which he refers to as classical Liberalism) and anti-Liberal "liberal" Progressivism and other forms of anti-Liberal Statism. He makes the counterfactual claim that Statism was the natural result and outgrowth of Liberalism, despite it being the plain historical record that Statism is what preceded Liberalism, going at least as far back as Plato's The Republic. He cites as Liberalism's luminary sources such anti-Liberals as Machiavelli Niccolò, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacque Rousseau, Alexander Hamilton, John Stuart Mill(to be fair, he was both Liberal and anti-Liberal at different points in his life), John Dewey, and many other such names. It's no wonder Deneen wouldn't know Liberalism if it jumped up and bit him.
It was evident that he read John Locke, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville among actual Liberals, and painfully evident that he read no more than the cliff notes to (if even that) for Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek. Why do I tarry so on these more obscure points? If nothing else, to appeal to Mr. Deneen to actually read at least The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Constitution of Liberty, and Anarchy, State, and Utopia before he ever again speaks or writes about "liberalism."
I'm not saying any of this to be petty or mean; I have read a number of works lately bewailing the fact that something is very much wrong in the world today, despite there being so very much right in it (eradication of poverty, reductions in crime and war, increases in literacy, life expectancy, etc.). Jonah Goldberg leads the Liberal faction's charge with his terrific Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy, while Rutger Bregman probably has one of the more tightly-argued from the Progressive side with Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World, so I was hoping to find a quality work from the Conservative side. At present, Jeffrey J. DiQuattro may have the last word with The Final Branch: Reflecting on the Heart of America, but a more updated work seems to be called for.
Deneen's total ignorance of what Liberalism is and isn't, along with his related complete inability to sort out cause and effect, make what could have been quite a thoughtful work into painful and unfruitful reading. Deneen makes few citations, even when he vaguely quotes people without actually quoting them. Further, his final prescriptions aren't an improvement on the sloppy work throughout. He holds up Wendell Berry as his own luminary and seems to suggest that going back to small, local communities with little commerce or concern with efficiency and with the authoritarian tendencies to remove books and "insist on the introduction of the Bible into the classroom as 'the word of God'" as being preferable to our current situation. (p 80) He conveniently leaves out which Bible or who would get to decide such things. Equally convenient is ignoring the fact that embracing a pre-Liberal level of efficiency and commerce would leave most of the world's billions starving to death and the surviving remnant more closely resembling a scene from Mad Max than some idyllic, romantic painting of pre-industrial America or Europe.
Deneen claims to reject simply discarding Liberalism for pre-Liberalism, but he is rather short on concrete suggestions otherwise. To wit, his final prescription is 1) acknowledge the achievements of Liberalism and not return to pre-Liberalism; 2) "outgrow ideology" (p 182, yes he actually said that) and develop "practices that foster new forms of culture, household economics, and polis life" (p 183); and, 3) come up with "a better theory of politics and society." (p 183, whatever that means) In point of fact, there are two ways: you are either free to do as you choose for yourself, or you are coerced to do as another chooses for you. With all due regrets offered to Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler, there actually isn't a "third way" and we've seen how that movie ends already, and it turns out to be the second way. I welcome Mr. Deneen to scratch his head all day long, I eagerly await his version of the "third way" and arguments (and empirical data, once tried!) that conclusively show it can provide the benefits of actual Liberalism while also possibly providing some of other benefits Deneen imagines some other system might bring. Anything less than the full benefits of liberty would cause a global catastrophe, given that our large and growing population depends on no less.
To sum up, the literature could use a strong, well-argued Conservative take on what's wrong with what's right in the world today and what to do about it. For the life of me, I can't understand why Deneen's lamentable "contribution" has gotten the largely positive attention it has, except perhaps his adroitness in pulling the latest "woke" headlines and talking points to throw stones at his Frankenstein's monster of Liberalism + anti-Liberalism declaimed merely as "liberalism" while implying, without having the courage to actually say it out loud, that folks would be better off as soon as they adopt Deneen's religion, culture, mores, society, etc., wholesale. I will eagerly read the well-written, well-argued Conservative book as soon as somebody writes one, but I can't in good conscience recommend this to you as that book.