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In a compelling meditation on the ideas that shape our lives, one of the world's most provocative and creative philosophers explains how his eccentric early years influenced his lifelong critique of liberalism.Liberalism is so amorphous and pervasive that for most people in the West it is background noise, the natural state of affairs. But there are nooks and crannies in every society where the prevailing winds don't blow. Raymond Geuss grew up some distance from the cultural mainstream and recounts here the unusual perspective he absorbed: one in which liberal capitalism was synonymous with moral emptiness and political complacency.Not Thinking like a Liberal is a concise tour of diverse intellectual currents -- from the Counter-Reformation and communism to pragmatism and critical theory -- that shaped Geuss's skeptical stance toward liberalism.