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Hegel's Critique of Liberalism: Rights in Context

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The reputation of Hegel has been so besmirched in the minds of many by the perils of statism gone awry that it is remarkable to see a book actually rescue him from charges of these evils, and others, and actually make some sense of his political philosophy. I think, however, that getting Hegel right is one thing in theory, and another in practice, and the chaotification of this seven course Hegelian dinner in its Marxist version has been tragic. We cannot simply say that all these people got Hegel wrong and issue a new 'the real Hegel', for such things rarely get second chances. But it behooves any Marxist to consider the scrambled version of this going on unconsciously, in some Feuerbachian pidgin translation. Brought out into the light, the full scope of Hegel's view are eloquent, rich, and powerful, as this book illustrates very easily. That does not mean one should agree. But if anything this formal challenge to the natural rights tradition can illuminate the limits of the mechanized political liberalism of the first stage of the modernist social revolution. After this exceptionally clear, and reasonably short, survey of all the issues, one realizes that the problem was not really Hegel, but the inexorably arising misinterpretations of his decidedly difficult works.
One should note that such a clear exposition as this can actually make one think this is an easy subject and Hegel's views here are the object of many controversies and has many critics, consider Isaiah Berlin's Freedom and Its Betrayal, or Tucker's Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx.
One might also be sure to start at square one and consider the views Hegel reacts against, among them Kant's, cf. Patrick O'Reilly's Kant's Political Philosophy.