Free Speech
A History from Socrates to Social Media
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Narrated by:
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Fajer Al-Kaisi
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By:
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Jacob Mchangama
About this listen
A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today
Hailed as the “first freedom”, free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat.
In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders - from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and modern-day digital activists - Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech, too, is a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes.
Meticulously researched and deeply humane, Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle - and how much we stand to lose without it.
©2022 Jacob Mchangama (P)2022 Basic BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“The best history of free speech ever written and the best defense of free speech ever made. Jacob Mchangama never loses sight of the trouble freedom causes but always keeps in mind that lack of freedom creates horrors.” (P.J. O’Rourke)
“Freedom of speech has emerged as a major issue of this decade, but most of the discussion consists of outrages over speech or the repression of speech. Missing is the intellectual background: What does free speech really mean? What is its history? How has it played out in world events? Why should we defend it? Jacob Mchangama lays out this context with deep erudition, strong writing, and a light touch.” (Steven Pinker, Johnstone professor of psychology, Harvard University, and the author of Enlightenment Now and Rationality)
“Jacob Mchangama’s history of the world's strangest, best idea is the definitive account we have been waiting for. It teems with valuable insights, lively characters, and the author's passion for the cause he has done so much to advance. Mchangama brings to life the ancient struggles which established free speech and also the modern dangers which embattle it. Free Speech is that rare book which will impress scholars as much as it entertains readers, all while telling the world's most improbable success story.” (Jonathan Rauch, author of The Constitution of Knowledge)
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- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this seminal work that has spent more than 30 years in print, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin explain the reasons behind anti-Semitism, the world's preoccupation with the Jews and Israel, and why now more than ever the world needs to confront anti-Jewish sentiment. Prager and Telushkin examine in detail how anti-Semitism is a unique hatred - no other prejudice has been as universal, deep, or permanent - and how the concept of the "chosen people" spawned that hatred.
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It answers the question!
- By MarissaB on 10-01-16
By: Dennis Prager, and others
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Freedom for the Thought That We Hate
- A Biography of the First Amendment
- By: Anthony Lewis
- Narrated by: Stow Lovejoy
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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More than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think. The reason for this extraordinary freedom is not a superior culture of tolerance, but just 14 words in our most fundamental legal document: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Anthony Lewis tells us how these rights were created, revealing a story of hard choices, heroic (and some less heroic) judges, and fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face-to-face with one of America's great founding ideas.
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Freedom of Expression: 163 years of Solitude
- By Dudley H. Williams on 12-21-11
By: Anthony Lewis
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Nonviolence
- The History of a Dangerous Idea
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Richard Dreyfuss
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, New York Times best-selling author Mark Kurlansky discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power.
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A brief, necessary account of the history of nonviolence
- By Real Talk on 07-29-20
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Communism [Modern Library Chronicles]
- By: Richard Pipes
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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From the acclaimed Modern Library Chronicles comes an exploration of a promising theory that when put to practice wreaked havoc on the world. An expert on communism, Richard Pipes follows the history of the Soviet Union from the 1917 revolution to the Cold War, and finally, to its deterioration and collapse.
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Interesting but lacks objectivity
- By Mazen on 07-06-06
By: Richard Pipes
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Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
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Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
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The Coming of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.
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Compelling and depressing
- By Tad Davis on 06-30-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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From the Ruins of Empire
- The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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A little more than a century ago, as the Japanese navy annihilated the giant Russian one at the Battle of Tsushima, original thinkers across Asia, working independently, sought to frame a distinctly Asian intellectual tradition that would inform and inspire the continent's anticipated rise to dominance.
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Breathtaking Scale, Cohesion and Vision of Asian History
- By Oscar C. Huerta on 03-18-19
By: Pankaj Mishra
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Hitler's American Model
- The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
- By: James Q. Whitman
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime.
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Did not we suspect this?
- By dessa on 11-04-18
By: James Q. Whitman
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The Anatomy of Fascism
- By: Robert O. Paxton
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete, what the fascists did rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question for the first time. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up "enemies of the state", through Mussolini's rise to power, to Germany's fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others.
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Great book for getting a clearer idea of fascism
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-17
By: Robert O. Paxton
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The Second Amendment
- A Biography
- By: Michael Waldman
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights. At a time of increasing gun violence in America, Waldman's book provoked a wide range of discussion. This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers. The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men - who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present.
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were not paying attention, just passed it
- By Donald LaFave on 02-27-21
By: Michael Waldman
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The Internationalists
- How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World
- By: Oona A. Hathaway, Scott J. Shapiro
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 19 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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On a hot summer afternoon in 1928, the leaders of the world assembled in Paris to outlaw war. Within the year, the treaty signed that day, known as the Peace Pact, had been ratified by nearly every state in the world. War, for the first time in history, had become illegal the world over. But the promise of that summer day was fleeting. Within a decade of its signing, each state that had gathered in Paris to renounce war was at war. And in the century that followed, the Peace Pact was dismissed as an act of folly and an unmistakable failure.
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cart before horse
- By Coffin Family on 12-02-22
By: Oona A. Hathaway, and others
What listeners say about Free Speech
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tiago Flora
- 02-15-22
A reaffirmation of a key fundamental right
The author does a fantastic job at documenting the conception and application of a right to free speech from Athenian democracy to the 21st century.
The first two thirds of the book are an informative history of the philosophical, legal, and practical contexts for speech in Ancient Greece, Rome, medieval and modern Europe and the Middle East, and the American colonies/United States. It brings detail to the evolution of free speech and the press in the West in particular.
If you follow international news on democratic backsliding, most of the last few chapters of the book won't give you that much new information. Those are nonetheless a vivid and chilling reminder of the threats free speech faces today in the developed and developing world alike, and why we should not let barriers to speech be raised.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Sadanand Evans
- 02-28-22
very informative
This was a good review of free speech. I enjoyed listening to the history of free speech. it wasn't as dry as one might think
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1 person found this helpful
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- John Wayne Mortimer II
- 03-12-22
Great book - boring narration
Loved the book, but I really wish Jacob had narrated it for us. The narrator is clear and understandable. My only issue was that his narration as a bit monotone and slow. I listened at 1.4x just to stay awake.
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- John Mayo
- 05-08-23
Great historical perspective.
It is amazing to understand the ebb and flow of free speech from the Athenians to today. THE fundamental principle of freedom is explained historically.
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- baroquenspirit
- 09-16-22
Timely and Vital
This book is a well researched and fairly comprehensive account of the history and value of free-speech. It warns us that this right can and often is eroded in the name of both authoritarianism and tolerance. If you are thin skinned in your ideology on either the left or right, this book will tweak you. I highly recommend it.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-22-22
Great review of free speech and history
Enjoyed the overall look at free speech, free press, and how these freedoms were viewed over time in different cultures. I felt it was a little left leaning, and the details were difficult to remember for an audiobook. I had to rewind and re-listen a few times. Maybe that’s just me.
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3 people found this helpful
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- N. Martin
- 07-15-23
Sensational book, problematic reading
Mchangama’s book is everything I had hoped for and more. It lays out the history of free speech elegantly and in fascinating detail. The narrator, while having a fine voice, serves up some excruciating mispronunciations. I run into this problem too often, and the blame lies with the publishers. They seem to have little concern for the excellence of their products. Don’t let that discourage you from buying this fine book.
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- Louis Macareo
- 03-06-22
Reminds you why free speech is the core freedom
The details in this book are many, but the core point that repeatedly hit me was how oftrn people suffer from Milton's Curse, that is, how often people rise to prominence and power via free speech and then very often, almost instinctually, begin to limit free spech in their wake. It is remarkable and never a good thing, as are all efforts to limit speech, even when there is a downside to allowing it, it is the greatest and most important vehicle that exists. Am excellent work chroniclally several thousand years of thought on the subject. Well worth the read.
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- Sarah
- 10-26-22
An overwhelming amount of information
This is a scholarly tome containing a great deal of detail on freedom of speech down through the ages. But given such an overwhelming amount of detail, the book loses track of the big picture. I didn't feel his conclusion pulled it all together well and was not convinced by the book's basic thesis that Every effort to limit the freedom of speech backfires. Today, freedom of speech includes pervasive LIES that are destroying civil society. If we cannot restrict politicians from spewing nothing but lies, and if we have television stations and internet sites echoing the same, we will end up in a totalitarian state. Once the thugs take over, the same people who tout their right to say ANYTHING today will be throwing people in jail for speaking the truth.
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