The First Freedom

This volume examines the history of free speech, from the execution of Socrates to the writings of Milton, Voltaire and Mill and the struggles of Paine, Wilkes and Cobbett. From its infancy in ancient Athens, Hargreaves offers pen-portraits of the champions of free speech, recounting the story through the people who kept the idea of free speech alive through periods of progress, cataclysmic defeats and centuries of stagnation. His study covers ancient Greece and Rome, Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe and the United States.