On Freedom

August 1, 2024
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom. In this ambitious study, Snyder, author ofOn Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms--as freedom from coercion, especially by the state--but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: "An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense." In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. "We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions," he writes. The author argues that it's absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation's penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy. An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of--and call to action on--America's foundational ideal.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2024
The latest from this esteemed Yale historian takes a contemplative turn, examining the concept of freedom through the events of his life, his travels in war-torn Ukraine, and his work teaching incarcerated persons. Freedom, writes Snyder (On Tyranny, 2017), is often believed to be the absence of constraints: we are free when barriers that might hinder us--occupiers, oppressors, the government--are out of the way. But true freedom, he argues, exists in conditions that support human empowerment: the ability to become and be ourselves, and to know what we value and bring it into existence. In light of philosophers Edith Stein, Frantz Fanon, and Carl Schmitt, among others, Snyder identifies five types of freedom (sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, factuality, and solidarity), and describes how each is threatened by recent social, political, and technological developments. Prompted by a recent health scare (Our Malady, 2020), Snyder's discussion frequently returns to the concept of corporeality: the awareness that the bodies of others, understood with empathy, become the roots of perception and reason. Pensive yet urgent, this meditation is itself an exercise of intellectual freedom.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 21, 2024
Yale historian Snyder follows up On Tyranny, his grim but heady look at the ways freedom can get chipped away, with a more soporific rumination on how freedom can be maintained. Snyder contends that in today’s world freedom is wrongly conceived as a “freedom from” negative outcomes, rather than a “freedom to” make choices and flourish. The latter kind of “positive freedom,” in Snyder’s view, comprises an intriguing range of personal freedoms involving both political and bodily autonomy—from freedom of expression and freedom of speech to free healthcare and the right to eight hours of sleep per night. While this sounds lefty, Snyder sets himself up as arguing with the left, who he sees as having ill-advisedly abandoned the notion of freedom as too individualistic. Indeed, the purpose of the book’s many forays into 20th-century history is partly to prove how important the idea of personal freedom has been to leftist triumphs like the defeat of Nazism and the American civil rights movement. Snyder makes many salient points, especially when he notes how fear-powered “negative freedom” leads to social atomization. But the all-encompassing scope of his argument ventures into too tidy territory (Martin Luther King Jr. believed in “positive freedom,” the war on terror was motivated by “negative freedom,” and so on). The many kernels of insight don’t outweigh the cumbersomeness of some of the connections made here.