Ortega has always been present in Anglo-American thought since the publication of The Revolt of the Masses. Some of America’s best scholars, such as John Graham, Nelson Orringer, and Philippe Silver, have grappled with his thought. Brendon Westler stands in this same tradition, although the scope of his book is more limited: he does not want to present the whole of Ortega’s philosophy, but only his political and social philosophy.

The book has five chapters and an Introduction, a bibliography of about 200 titles (books and journal articles), and an index of names and concepts. In the brief chapter 1, “Ortega’s Legacy and Context,” the author addresses two important issues: (1) the relation between Ortega’s concept of liberalism and the phases of his philosophical development; (2) the relation between Ortega’s political philosophy and the Spanish liberal tradition of the nineteenth century. This second issue is extensively addressed in chapter 2. The first issue will always be controversial, since there is no agreement between Ortega’s scholars about the phases of his philosophical development; Wrestler mentions Ferrater Mora’s and Moron Arroyo’s periodization (23), but there are several others. Of course, a lengthy discussion of this issue would engage him in an overall evaluation of Ortega’s philosophy, which is not his purpose in this book.

Chapter 2, “Spanish Liberalism: Between the Individual and the Community,” is perhaps the most interesting and the most original. The author addresses the Spanish roots of Ortega’s liberalism and shows that there exists a Spanish tradition of liberal thought that has some original traits compared to the French and Anglo-American traditions. Arguably its most original trait is its filiation in the neo-scholastic tradition of the School of Salamanca, with its concern with problems of social equality and cohesion. This relation explains why, despite the Catholic reaction to the liberal constitution of Cadiz, the conflict between church and state was not so intense in Spain as it was in France. The author also stresses the importance of the Spanish Krausist movement, especially after the Restoration of 1876, above all in education and in the project (which Ortega will inherit) of keeping Spain in contact with the most advanced European countries.

Although Brendon Westler has written an excellent book, some statements, in chapter 3, “Promoting the Free Life in Common: The Liberalism of José Ortega y Gasset,” raise certain issues. In the first place, Westler could have been more attentive to the importance of a small text published in El Espectador, titled “Notas de Vago Estío.” Westler had said in his Introduction, “Although it is fairly easy to find areas where [Ortega] praises liberalism, rarely does he present explicitly his own understanding of it.” (20). This is consistent with Westler’s statement that Ortega was no systematic thinker (9), although this claim is contestable, since Ortega himself stressed that he had found a reality (namely, human life) upon which philosophy could build a system. In the text published in El Espectador, not only Ortega does give a clear definition of the liberal ethos; he also explains the difference between liberalism and democracy. While the first pertains to the limits of state intervention in private matters, the second concerns who is entitled to rule the state. Moreover, the way Westler deals with the relation between Ortega’s neo-Kantian training and his subsequent philosophical development raises some doubts. Since the works of Pedro Cerezo and Javier San Martín, almost everyone agrees that Ortega’s contact with phenomenology, around the years 1911–12, caused a significant change in his thought. That is why it is sometimes awkward seeing the author (e.g., 96) addressing Social Pedagogy (from 1910) and Man and People (whose first draft dates from 1940) as if the concept of the “social” had not undergone significant changes.

In his fine analysis of the attitude of the spectator, Westler chooses to connect this attitude with the Nietzschean idea of a “multiplication of perspectives” (100); yet “spectator” is an excellent word to characterize the phenomenological attitude.

In his presentation of Ortega’s liberalism, Westler seems to avoid a delicate issue: the fact that Ortega’s view of liberalism became more and more conservative over time, especially after the experience of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, Westler acknowledges in the Introduction that from the 1920s onwards Ortega’s vision of Spain and Europe darkened. Some scholars look at some of Ortega’s late texts as a kind of farewell to his former liberal creed. It is impossible not to notice that some key concepts of Ortega’s liberal thought—like the concept of convivencia, for instance—underwent some modifications. It is also undeniable that his insistence on the permanent danger of internal discord that may tear societies apart gives his liberalism of the 1940s and 1950s a different tonality. In his analysis of About the Roman Empire (96–98), Westler does not seem to have noticed the change of tone in Ortega’s defense of liberalism after his return to Spain in 1946.

In chapter 4, “José Ortega y Gasset and the Idea of Europe,” Westler addresses the role that the issue of European identity and unity played in the development of Ortega’s political thought. Although it may be questionable to state (111) that Ortega only worried about Europe’s destiny in a late phase of his philosophical endeavors, Westler succeeds in giving his reader a very complete idea of Ortega’s opinions on this issue. He rightly sees Ortega’s idea of Europe and European unity as an extension of his liberalism (118). This is particularly evident as Ortega sees Europe as the heir of a Roman idea of power tempered by the contribution of old Germanic law and its emphasis on the independence of the individual vis-à-vis state power. Stressing Ortega’s idea of a European unity that would preserve the cultural diversity of European nations, Westler emphasizes the historical roots of this idea in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century’s philosophy (136), and the importance of keeping faithful to it in times of rising populism (151).

Chapter 5, “A Unity of Contradictions: Political Practice in Times of Crisis,” focuses on the concept of crisis. Westler shows its centrality in understanding Ortega’s political and social philosophy. He also underscores the differences between a trivial concept of crisis (like the one we can find nowadays in social media) and the authentic concept. Crisis means a profound loss of meaning, a sense of disorientation, the break with traditional beliefs of a religious, social, or political character. Crisis was not something new in Ortega’s time. Europe, however, was then entering a new crisis, the dimensions of which were similar to the crisis of the late Middle Ages that gave birth to modern times. As Brendon Westler points out, Ortega foreshadowed some traits of this future that were already becoming visible. Above all, given mass discontent of his time, Ortega foreshadowed the rise of an anti-liberal trend that came to be known in the twenty-first century as “populism.” Pessimism, however, was not Ortega’s last word. At the end of his book (174), Westler shows that Ortega’s intellectual efforts sought to establish new foundations for our common life.