Free Speech

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 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 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 In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama presents a compelling case for the unique, universal, enduring importance of free and equal speech for all people, regardless of their particular identities or ideologies. This fascinating account, of magisterial scope, demonstrates the constant liberating and equalizing force of free speech, throughout history and around the world. It also documents the constant censorial pressures, including many that reflect positive aims, and their inevitable suppression of full and equal human rights -- Nadine Strossen, Former National President, American Civil Liberties Union A lot of people now claim that free speech is a danger to democracy or social inclusion. In this vital book, which is as entertaining as it is erudite, Jacob Mchangama shows why that is dead wrong. Drawing on both historical analysis and normative argument, he makes a compelling case for why anyone who cares about liberty or justice must defend free speech -- Yascha Mounk, author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University Jacob Mchangama's panoramic exploration of the history of free speech offers a vivid, highly readable account of how today's most pitched battles over free speech reflect tensions and impulses that are as old as history itself. Mchangama persuasively dismantles the persistent claims, common to every era and technological evolution, that unprecedented new threats warrant expanded constraints on speech. This indispensable book is a must for both defenders of free speech and, even more so, for those entertaining the notion that free speech should or must be traded away in order to advance other public goods -- Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America and author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All (2020) Mchangama has written an insightful, nicely woven history that provides a coherent picture of how free speech has developed globally . . . With accessible and engaging writing, Mchangama's book is a highly recommended intellectual history -- Library Journal, Starred Review [Free Speech makes] a persuasive argument that free discourse is essential to democracy, breaking down systems of oppression, and challenging existing social hierarchies . . . Readers on both the right and the left seeking insights into modern day debates over free speech will welcome this evenhanded and wide ranging history -- Publishers Weekly This outstanding book gets it in one: free speech, as that right and privilege has been fought for and exercised as a key component of our always fragile democracies, is currently experiencing the greatest threat imaginable. To learn exactly how and why, and what we can do to eliminate or minimise this threat, everyone needs to read this deeply researched and powerfully written, truly global history covering everything from the face-to-face world of the ancient Greeks to our own, very different world of anonymous digital media -- Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, emeritus, University of Cambridge Scholarly in its erudition, but also immensely readable . . . Free speech is not a fashionable value - often perceived in 2022 as an outright threat to modern notions of social justice. This superb book is a corrective to that intellectual and cultural wrong turn and, as such, deserves as wide a readership as possible -- Matt d'Ancona, Tortoise Media