The text shows how religious censors eventually retreated, in part because Spinoza, Paine, Carlile, Mill, and others cogently argued that intellectual progress depended on free expression. But readers will see that modern secular ideologues—notably Fascists and Communists—have attacked free speech as brutally as religious inquisitors. Turning to the twenty-first century, Mchangama limns the strange evolution that turned progressive activists celebrating social media enabling Obama to defy establishment control into advocates of 'content moderation,' censorship intended to still the Twitter storms of Trump and his supporters. A provocative exploration of a transformative political right.
Journalist McHangama has written an insightful, nicely woven history that provides a coherent picture of how free speech has developed globally ... Using numerous anecdotes, the author makes this well-researched narrative both informative and entertaining as he recounts accusations of heresy and restrictions on the freedom of religion during the Inquisition and Martin Luther’s invention of the printing press, which challenged conventional ideas of disseminating news ... With accessible and engaging writing, McHangama’s book is a highly recommended intellectual history for casual readers and those interested in the currency of free speech.
... well-researched and highly readable ... The author effectively demonstrates how much we have gained by the spread of free speech as well as what we stand to lose if we allow its continued erosion ... A well-structured and compelling examination of the costs and benefits of free speech.
... impassioned ... Making a persuasive argument that free discourse is essential to democracy, breaking down systems of oppression, and challenging existing social hierarchies, McHangama profiles advocates ... McHangama also incisively analyzes 'the process of entropy' that leads political leaders to 'inevitably convince themselves that now free speech has gone too far,' and debunks arguments in favor of censorship, including claims that the lack of prohibitions against totalitarian propaganda in Weimar Germany facilitated the rise of the Nazis. 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.
[A] recurring theme in this expansive, atypical history is 'Milton’s Curse,' a disease that afflicts defenders of free speech when they are exposed to power ... Mr. Mchangama, who directs a Copenhagen-based human-rights think tank, is not out to cut free-speech warriors down. He is himself such a warrior, out to warn civilians about 'free speech entropy,' of which Milton’s Curse is only one aspect ... Free Speech is addressed especially to the well-meaning among would-be censors. They should know how rarely censorship goes as planned ... Mr. Mchangama acknowledges that there are many honorable proponents of hate-speech legislation. But he demands that such proponents have a reason, in the face of the history of overreach and error that his book unfolds, to trust themselves to wield illiberal tools in the work of freedom.
Mchangama is an astute and skeptical historian. He is keenly aware that the struggles over free speech and censorship are filled with the subjective experiences and divergent opinions, biases, prejudices, jealousies, delusions, motivations, ambitions, and mixed emotions that define what it is to be human ... It would be impossible to describe the vast array of pivotal historical events and remarkable people Mchangama covers in his sprawling narrative ... Culminates in his final chapters, in which he examines the internet, the future of free speech, and what he calls the current 'free speech recession' ... As he has shown time and again, Mchangama emphasizes that 'societal threats to free speech can be as stifling as government-imposed censorship' ... It is an admonition we must never forget.
