Meticulously researched, deeply humane and provocative, Free Speech challenges us all to recognise how much we have gained from this principle – and how much we stand to lose without it. In this well-researched and highly readable book, Copenhagen-based writer Mchangama, host of the podcast series Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free.

Yet the desire to restrict speech is also a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all kinds. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders – from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Razi, to Mary Wollstonecraft, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and modern-day digital activists – Mchangama demonstrates how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide.

In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. O’Rourke Hailed as the first freedom, free speech is the bedrock of democracy. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama ( 115 ) 18.99 The best history of free speech ever written and the best defense of free speech ever made. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy. Jacob Mchangama, founder and executive director of the Danish think tank Justitia and the host of the podcast Clear and Present Danger, read more. A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today. 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.

Free Speech by Jacob Mchangama