Results by title
147 books match the query 'Freedom' and 7 start with h
Halfway to Freedom
The History of Black Washington, DCMaurice Jackson. Foreword by Lonnie G. Bunch III.
Duke University Press, 2026
Halfway to Freedom is a social, political, intellectual, and cultural history of African Americans in Washington, DC, looking at the role that race, gender, color, culture, class, and power have played in the city and its relationship with the federal government, the nation, and the world.
For more than two hundred years, the history and culture of the District of Columbia have been in great part shaped by its Black residents. Several Black men were elected to political positions citywide only a handful of years after the end of the Civil War, and while the years after Reconstruction saw the region plagued with segregation and racial violence, the capital’s Black population continued to grow at all economic levels. Washington became the first major US city with a majority Black population in 1957, a status it held for almost seventy years as gentrification has led to the decline of Black political and economic power in DC in the twenty-first century.
Halfway to Freedom is a social, political, intellectual, and cultural history of African Americans in Washington, DC; it explores the role that race, gender, color, class, and power have played in the city and its relationship with the federal government. Maurice Jackson explores the material conditions that shaped life for African Americans, free and enslaved, from the earliest moments of the District’s history to more contemporary times of organization and activism. Through an array of archival materials, especially firsthand accounts of Black residents in the area, Jackson critiques how and why DC exists as a haven within the Black American imaginary given the realities of conflict its Black residents have faced and continue to face today. In doing so, he highlights and honors the gains they have earned through the concerted struggles of labor organizations, women’s movements, sports, music, art, legal activism, and more.
For more than two hundred years, the history and culture of the District of Columbia have been in great part shaped by its Black residents. Several Black men were elected to political positions citywide only a handful of years after the end of the Civil War, and while the years after Reconstruction saw the region plagued with segregation and racial violence, the capital’s Black population continued to grow at all economic levels. Washington became the first major US city with a majority Black population in 1957, a status it held for almost seventy years as gentrification has led to the decline of Black political and economic power in DC in the twenty-first century.
Halfway to Freedom is a social, political, intellectual, and cultural history of African Americans in Washington, DC; it explores the role that race, gender, color, class, and power have played in the city and its relationship with the federal government. Maurice Jackson explores the material conditions that shaped life for African Americans, free and enslaved, from the earliest moments of the District’s history to more contemporary times of organization and activism. Through an array of archival materials, especially firsthand accounts of Black residents in the area, Jackson critiques how and why DC exists as a haven within the Black American imaginary given the realities of conflict its Black residents have faced and continue to face today. In doing so, he highlights and honors the gains they have earned through the concerted struggles of labor organizations, women’s movements, sports, music, art, legal activism, and more.
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Hard Road to Freedom
The Story of African America, The Civil War to the MillenniumHorton, Lois E
Rutgers University Press, 2002
Hard Road to Freedom tells the story of African America from its African roots to the political and social upheavals at the end of the twentieth century. It interweaves the experiences of individual black Americans with an analysis of the nation's pursuit of its fundamental principles, of freedom, and civil rights. The book begins with African cultures and the African people who withstood the horrors of the slave trade and slavery to help shape a new multiracial society in North America. The American Revolution brought freedom to some, but most remained in the grip of slavery. African Americans and their allies continually raised the cry for freedom, building determined black communities and dedicated antislavery organizations that contributed to the abolition of slavery. The precarious freedom after the Civil War brought new opportunities, but also new dangers and the limitations of Jim Crow. The wars and the depression in the early twentieth century found black Americans forging new alliances, creating a cultural renaissance, and fighting for democracy and freedom abroad. At home, they struggled against the denials of freedom and citizenship that still barred their full participation and that tarnished America's standing in the eyes of the international community. Throughout the social and political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s and the political and cultural backlash that followed, African Americans continued to raise their voices in often eloquent and always insistent appeals that the nation live up to the promise of its principles. This book tells of America's unsteady advance along the road to freedom, the triumphs and hope, as well as the failures and despair, from the vantage point of the African Americans who resolutely played a critical role in that story.
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Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns
Domenico Losurdo
Duke University Press, 2004
Available in English for the first time, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns revives discussion of the major political and philosophical tenets underlying contemporary liberalism through a revolutionary interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s thought. Domenico Losurdo,one of the world’s leading Hegelians, reveals that the philosopher was fully engaged with the political controversies of his time. In so doing, he shows how the issues addressed by Hegel in the nineteenth century resonate with many of the central political concerns of today, among them questions of community, nation, liberalism, and freedom. Based on an examination of Hegel’s entire corpus—including manuscripts, lecture notes, different versions of texts, and letters—Losurdo locates the philosopher’s works within the historical contexts and political situations in which they were composed.
Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns persuasively argues that the tug of war between “conservative” and “liberal” interpretations of Hegel has obscured and distorted the most important aspects of his political thought. Losurdo unravels this misleading dualism and provides an illuminating discussion of the relation between Hegel’s political philosophy and the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He also discusses Hegel’s ideas in relation to the pertinent writings of other major figures of modern political philosophy such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Popper, Norberto Bobbio, and Friedrich Hayek.
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History after Liberty
Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and RepublicansThomas E. Strunk
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Roman historian Tacitus wrote a damning critique of the first century CE Roman empire. The emperors in Tacitus’ works are almost universally tyrants surrounded by flatterers and informants, and the image Tacitus creates is of a society that has lost the liberty enjoyed under the Roman Republic. Yet Tacitus also poignantly depicts those who resist this tyranny and seek to restore a sense of liberty to Rome. In his portrayal of autocrats, sycophants, and republicans Tacitus provides an enduring testament to the value of liberty and the evils of despotism.
History after Liberty explores Tacitus’ political thought through his understanding of liberty. Influenced by modern republican writers such as Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, this study defines Tacitean libertas as the freedom from the rule of a dominus and as freedom to participate in the traditional politics of Rome through military service, public service in the senate and magistracies, and public speech. All of these elements are balanced in Tacitus’ writings with examples of those resisting the corruption of politics in an effort to restore a sense of free civic engagement. The work concludes with an exploration of Tacitus’ own writings as an act of restoring liberty. In contrast to most studies on Tacitus, History after Liberty argues that Tacitus is a republican who writes both to demonstrate that Rome had become a tyranny and to show a way out of that tyranny.
History after Liberty addresses the political thought of Tacitus’ writings. As such it will be of most interest to those who study the history and historiography of the early Roman empire, namely classicists and ancient historians. The work will also be of use to those interested in the antecedents to modern political thought, particularly the history of republicanism and freedom; readers from this category will include political scientists, philosophers, and modern historians.
History after Liberty explores Tacitus’ political thought through his understanding of liberty. Influenced by modern republican writers such as Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, this study defines Tacitean libertas as the freedom from the rule of a dominus and as freedom to participate in the traditional politics of Rome through military service, public service in the senate and magistracies, and public speech. All of these elements are balanced in Tacitus’ writings with examples of those resisting the corruption of politics in an effort to restore a sense of free civic engagement. The work concludes with an exploration of Tacitus’ own writings as an act of restoring liberty. In contrast to most studies on Tacitus, History after Liberty argues that Tacitus is a republican who writes both to demonstrate that Rome had become a tyranny and to show a way out of that tyranny.
History after Liberty addresses the political thought of Tacitus’ writings. As such it will be of most interest to those who study the history and historiography of the early Roman empire, namely classicists and ancient historians. The work will also be of use to those interested in the antecedents to modern political thought, particularly the history of republicanism and freedom; readers from this category will include political scientists, philosophers, and modern historians.
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History and Human Responsibility
The Unbearable Weight of Freedom in a Dystopian WorldMarcel van Herpen
St. Augustine's Press, 2023
"The present crisis is felt more acutely than previous crisis situations," observes Dutch security expert Marcel van Herpen, largely because human beings are now projecting responsibility into history on all fronts––past and future, in addition to the present. Learning from the past has become an imperative to safeguard the well-being of future generations by never repeating negative experiences, so much so that it demands an explanation of culpability into the past that burdens the present under a weight that does not properly belong to actors who did not commit the deeds of the past and have yet to decide their futures.
In a time of crisis we face the accusations of history, however distant, and are subjected to the sound of its echoing ahead of us. But, Van Herpen asks, to what exactly (or to what extent) should we listen as we strive to respond to the challenges of present day? "Is it true that history is a teacher for our lives? And has it ever been? In crisis periods this question becomes more urgent: old certainties disappear and––independently from our wishes––a new, unknown world is emerging, which seems to be at odds with our established ways of thinking and our existing value patterns."
Van Herpen scrutinizes modern European history and the post-modern man and offers the reader a compelling account of human freedom in politics, morality, and the ways in which history will or will not ever guide us into the future. He proves himself to be a very capable political scientist and sociologist, but more importantly he has now pronounced himself to be an optimistic (yet sober) observer of both human beings and history, willing to confront the present generation with possible future outcomes of contemporary crises.
In a time of crisis we face the accusations of history, however distant, and are subjected to the sound of its echoing ahead of us. But, Van Herpen asks, to what exactly (or to what extent) should we listen as we strive to respond to the challenges of present day? "Is it true that history is a teacher for our lives? And has it ever been? In crisis periods this question becomes more urgent: old certainties disappear and––independently from our wishes––a new, unknown world is emerging, which seems to be at odds with our established ways of thinking and our existing value patterns."
Van Herpen scrutinizes modern European history and the post-modern man and offers the reader a compelling account of human freedom in politics, morality, and the ways in which history will or will not ever guide us into the future. He proves himself to be a very capable political scientist and sociologist, but more importantly he has now pronounced himself to be an optimistic (yet sober) observer of both human beings and history, willing to confront the present generation with possible future outcomes of contemporary crises.
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How Democracies Live
Power, Statecraft, and Freedom in Modern SocietiesStein Ringen
University of Chicago Press, 2022
Times have not been kind to democracy. This book is in its defense.
In the new century, the triumph of democracy at the end of the Cold War turned to retrenchment. The core democracies, in America and Britain, succumbed to polarization and misrule. Dictatorships, such as China, made themselves assertive. New democracies in Central Europe turned to muddled ideologies of “illiberal democracy.” In this book, Stein Ringen offers a meditation on what democracy is, the challenges it faces, and how it can be defended. Ringen argues that democracy must be rooted in a culture that supports the ability of citizens to exchange views and information among themselves and with their rulers.
Drawing on the ideas of Machiavelli, Aristotle, Tocqueville, Max Weber, and others, Ringen shows how power is the fuel of government, and statecraft turns power into effective rule. Democracy should prize freedom and minimizing unfairness, especially poverty. Altogether, Ringen offers powerful insight on the meaning of democracy, including a new definition, and how countries can improve upon it and make it function more effectively. Timely and thought-provoking, How Democracies Live is a sober reminder of the majesty of the democratic enterprise.
In the new century, the triumph of democracy at the end of the Cold War turned to retrenchment. The core democracies, in America and Britain, succumbed to polarization and misrule. Dictatorships, such as China, made themselves assertive. New democracies in Central Europe turned to muddled ideologies of “illiberal democracy.” In this book, Stein Ringen offers a meditation on what democracy is, the challenges it faces, and how it can be defended. Ringen argues that democracy must be rooted in a culture that supports the ability of citizens to exchange views and information among themselves and with their rulers.
Drawing on the ideas of Machiavelli, Aristotle, Tocqueville, Max Weber, and others, Ringen shows how power is the fuel of government, and statecraft turns power into effective rule. Democracy should prize freedom and minimizing unfairness, especially poverty. Altogether, Ringen offers powerful insight on the meaning of democracy, including a new definition, and how countries can improve upon it and make it function more effectively. Timely and thought-provoking, How Democracies Live is a sober reminder of the majesty of the democratic enterprise.
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How Machines Came to Speak
Media Technologies and Freedom of SpeechJennifer Petersen
Duke University Press, 2022
In How Machines Came to Speak Jennifer Petersen constructs a genealogy of how legal conceptions of “speech” have transformed over the last century in response to new media technologies. Drawing on media and legal history, Petersen shows that the legal category of speech has varied considerably, evolving from a narrow category of oratory and print publication to a broad, abstract conception encompassing expressive nonverbal actions, algorithms, and data. She examines a series of pivotal US court cases in which new media technologies—such as phonographs, radio, film, and computer code—were integral to this shift. In judicial decisions ranging from the determination that silent films were not a form of speech to the expansion of speech rights to include algorithmic outputs, courts understood speech as mediated through technology. Speech thus became disarticulated from individual speakers. By outlining how legal definitions of speech are indelibly dependent on technology, Petersen demonstrates that future innovations such as artificial intelligence will continue to restructure speech law in ways that threaten to protect corporate and institutional forms of speech over the rights and interests of citizens.
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