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The volume begins with a study by Douglass C. North that emphasizes the economic and social factors that encouraged the development of freedom in the West and inhibited its development in other societies, notably China. The Greeks first devised civil and political liberty, and also were the first to have a word, eleutheria, for the concept. Martin Ostwald traces the history of the word over the course of Greek history, seeking when and why it assumed a meaning similar to freedom. Brian Tierney demonstrates how the medieval Church, by perpetuating Roman traditions of popular election and inspiring representative government, was vital to the development of modern freedom. The earliest secular institutions to follow the example of the Church in shaping their own governments were the towns of Italy, and John Hine Mundy shows how the towns served as the initial training grounds for laymen in the practice of free government. Monarchs whose coffers were depleted by continuous warfare sought to tap the resources of the wealthy towns and better-off rural residents, but these long-independent groups were not easily bullied and gathered their representatives together to negotiate taxation and grievances. In two chapters, H. G. Koenigsberger traces this background of parliaments and estates from all over Europe from the thirteenth century through the early modern era. In seventeenth-century England, parliamentary legislation would become the major vehicle for protecting the liberties of the subject. Before that, however, the common law courts were the main arena for advancing freedom, as J. H. Baker shows in his examination of the key developments in the common law. Traditionally, the Renaissance and the Reformation have been looked upon as largely separate phenomena. William J. Bouwsma asserts that in fact they were closely linked, with profound consequences for the shaping of modern freedom. Donald R. Kelley discusses the various forms and justifications of resistance that arose against the powerful monarchies that had emerged from the chaos and confusion of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
Roots of Freedom is a primer on the thinkers and ideas that, over many centuries, have laid the foundations of free societies. Concepts such as the rule of law, independent judiciary, limited government, free markets, and individual autonomy are traced in the writings of (among others) Luther, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Adam Smith, the American founders, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Stuart Mill.
Why does the world speak English? Why does every country at least pretend to aspire to representative government, personal freedom, and an independent judiciary? In The New Road to Serfdom, British politician Daniel Hannan exhorted Americans not to abandon the principles that have made our country great. Inventing Freedom is a much more ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of those principles, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled. According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—are not broadly "Western" in the usual sense of the term. Rather they are the legacy of a very specific tradition, one that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited. The first English kingdoms, as they emerged from the Dark Ages, already had unique characteristics that would develop into what we now call constitutional government. By the tenth century, a thousand years before most modern countries, England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights. The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How, repressed after the Norman Conquest, it reasserted itself; how it developed during the civil wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into the modern liberal-democratic tradition; how it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories—the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. Constitution—and how it came to defeat every international rival. Yet there was nothing inevitable about it. Anglosphere values could easily have been snuffed out in the 1940s. And they would not be ascendant today if the Cold War had ended differently. Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. The current U.S. president, in particular, seems determined to deride and traduce the Anglosphere values that the Founders took for granted. Inventing Freedom explains why the extraordinary idea that the state was the servant, not the ruler, of the individual evolved uniquely in the English-speaking world. It is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.
Presents a critique of the deceptive and ultimately self-subverting character of the modern notion of freedom, retrieving an alternative view through a new interpretation of the ancient tradition.
This book, the result of 40 years of Hegel research, gives an integral interpretation of G.W.F. Hegel's mature practical philosophy as contained in his textbook, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, published in 1820, and the courses he gave on the same subject between 1817 and 1830.
By offering a fresh look at the strange history of this idea, Another Freedom delivers a nuanced portrait of freedom's unpredictable occurrences and unexplored plots, one whose repercussions will be felt well into the future. --Book Jacket.
Yvonne C. Zimmerman offers a groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between freedom and sexual regulation in American approaches to human trafficking.
The fifteenth and final volume of the series The Making of Modern Freedom, this book explores a variety of issues surrounding questions of human rights and freedom in China. The chapters suggest very significant realms of freedom, with or without the protection of law, in the personal, social, and economic lives of people in China before the twentieth century. This was recognized, and partly codified, in the early twentieth century, when legal experts sought to establish a republic of laws and limits. The process of legal reform, however, would be placed firmly in the service of strengthening the post-imperial Chinese nation-state, culminating after 1949 in despotism unparalleled in Chinese history. Nevertheless, the last decades of the twentieth century and the first years of our own would witness a slow, steady, but unmistakable reassertion of realms of personal and communal autonomy that show, even in an era of strong states, at least the prospect of institutionalized freedoms.
The Super Bowl. Democrats vs. Republicans. Ford vs. Chevy. Bloods vs. Crips. Public vs. private schools. Sibling rivalries. Competition permeates every aspect of our society, and we place great confidence in its ability to allocate resources efficiently, spur innovation, and build personal character. As others have argued, competition is now a paradigm—a conceptual framework that is often taken for granted but rarely challenged. In this book, experts examine competition from their own disciplinary perspectives. From economics to philosophy, biology to education, and psychology to politics, the origins and applications of this paradigm are placed in historical context, its mechanics are analyzed, and its costs and benefits are assessed. The questions addressed in this book are important and varied. What is the historical genesis of the competition paradigm? How is competition manifest in our culture—in religion, politics, economics, sports, business, and education—and are its effects always beneficial? What can we learn about the mechanics of competition from studying nature? Are humans naturally competitive, or is it a learned behavior? How does competition affect our mental and physical well-being? Is competition the best strategy for allocating finite planetary resources to an expanding human population? The book also engages a cooperative alternative, and asks: Is there an ethical tension between competition and cooperation? Why have cooperative models been undervalued and marginalized? Can cooperation increase innovation and efficiency? This collection provides a broad, insightful, and productive examination of one of the dominant concepts of our time.
Modern individuality is the not-so-secret protagonist of Hegel’s practical philosophy. In the framework of spirit, Hegel presents some basic features of the individual’s way of life, lifeworld, self-interpreation, and self-determination, which can also be timely in shaping our own personal and social identities.