In the book In the Shadow of Justice, Katrina Forrester recounts how liberal political philosophy transformed in the second half of the 20th century under the influence of John Rawls. The author explains how liberal egalitarianism - a bundle of ideas about justice, equality, obligation, and the state - became dominant, and identifies its emergence within the political and ideological context of post-war United States and Britain.

In the aftermath of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Rawls' Theory of Justice shaped a distinct kind of liberalism that was foundational for political philosophy. Drawing on archival sources, Forrester explores the rise and legacy of this liberalism, tracing its origins to the debates among American anti-statists and British egalitarians in the mid-20th century. She identifies the roots of contemporary theories of justice and inequality, political disobedience, just war, global and intergenerational justice, and population ethics in the 1960s and 1970s and beyond.

During that period, political philosophers extended, developed, and reshaped this liberalism in their efforts to respond to challenges and alternative left-wing and right-wing movements - from the New International Economic Order to the rise of the New Right. These thinkers reconstructed political philosophy in ways that influenced not only their own trajectory, but also that of their critics.

By reshaping the history of late 20th-century political thought and offering innovative interpretations and new perspectives on the works of major political philosophers, this book provides a comprehensive look at the ambitions and limits of liberalism.