Deneen approvingly cites the radical feminist Nancy Fraser to bolster his assertions about women in the work force, yet nowhere does he sufficiently address how gendered injustices — what Fraser calls “domestic violence, sexual assault and reproductive oppression” — might fare in his own faith-based, localist program. Despite his buttoned-up solemnity Deneen occasionally plays peekaboo with his sources, especially the left-wing ones, shining the klieg lights on certain parts of their arguments while eliding others that might complicate his own.

In an otherwise illuminating section on the development of capitalism, Deneen refers to the great economic historian Karl Polanyi, who showed how the state had to take a strong hand in the creation of ostensibly free markets: “As Polanyi pithily says of this transformation, ‘Laissez-faire was planned.’” But Polanyi drew different conclusions from his own observations. An ardent social democrat who fled his beloved Red Vienna when the fascists took over, Polanyi went into exile four times, eventually landing in Canada. This cosmopolitan intellectual, born into a Hungarian-Jewish family, would most likely have been highly suspicious of Deneen’s extreme disdain for what he calls “lives of deracinated vagabondage” and his sentimentalization of communal norms enforced by “people of good will.”

Deneen says that the only proper response to liberalism is “to transform the household into a small economy.” Home may be where the heart is, but it can also be the site for homegrown prejudice, petty grievances and a vicious cruelty. Deneen is so determined to depict liberalism as a wholly bankrupt ideology that he gives exceedingly short shrift to what might have made it appealing — and therefore powerful — in the first place. With all its abiding flaws, liberalism offered a way out for those who didn’t conform to the demands of the clan.

Besides, nobody is truly stopping Deneen from doing what he prescribes: finding a community of like-minded folk, taking to the land, growing his own food, pulling his children out of public school. His problem is that he apparently wants everyone to do these things — which suggests he may have more in common with his caricature of a bullying liberal than he cares to admit.

Or perhaps it just goes to show that everyone has his blind spots — even erudite political philosophers keen to denounce the blind spots of others. Deneen and his fellow localists are cast as virtuous souls who would necessarily make discerning, merciful and respectful yeoman farmers once the revolution comes. Yet this generous forbearance doesn’t seem to extend to liberals — or to use his awkward slur, “liberalocrats” — who get tarred in this book as a bunch of condescending, self-satisfied chumps. Hypocrites, every one: They’re all the same.