The History of Freedom

Michael Moynihan provides a historical measure for the fundamental concept of "freedom," both a popular history of freedom as well as a catalyst for discussion of the status of freedom today. To define and quantify "freedom," Moynihan reaches back through history to the primordial moment for freedom in the West: the flight of Jews from slavery in Egypt. He then traces an arc that takes the reader through ancient Athens and Rome, Runnymede in the 13th century, Philadelphia in 1787, through to the overthrow of the Raj, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and up to the present. This engaging tour illustrates his thesis that freedom has never been the natural state of man, but rather a privilege that must be constantly attended to, fought for, and earned. Moynhihan then applies his historical lens to the specific threats to freedom in our contemporary landscape: fundamentalism, China's rise as an economic power, and the vulnerability of the U.S. economy to foreign oil and a society of indebted citizens.