Ezra Klein

is valuable for us right now.

And one of the books I came across in the search is called The Lost History of Liberalism.

It's by the historian Helena Rosenblatt.

And one of the arguments it makes is that before we ever had this word liberalism, in fact, for thousands of years before the word, there was this tradition of being a liberal.

And behind that tradition, there was this virtue called liberality.

And people thought this virtue was really, really important.

As Rosenblatt writes, for almost 2,000 years it meant demonstrating the virtues of a citizen, showing devotion to the common good, and respecting the importance of mutual connectedness.

Liberality was talked about everywhere.

You can read about it in Cicero, in John Locke, in the letters of George Washington.

And yet, we never talk about it today.

Liberalism as a political philosophy and movement, it completely elbowed out.

Liberality is a virtue.

As an ethic, a citizen aspires to meet.

I want to be clear, I don't think a rediscovery of liberality is a complete answer to what ails liberalism, but I do think it's one piece of the puzzle.

I found it exciting.

I think it's one place to begin an inquiry you're going to hear a lot more of on this show over the next year.

Helena Rosenblatt is a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.

She's the author of Liberal Values, Benjamin Constant, and the Politics of Religion, as well as the aforementioned The Lost History of Liberalism, which I highly recommend.

As always, my email is reclineshow at nytimes.com.

Helena Rosenblatt, welcome to the show.