Liberty and freedom / David Hackett Fischer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fischer, David Hackett, 1935-

Series:

Fischer, David Hackett, 1935- America, a cultural history ; v. 3.

America, a cultural history ; 3

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National characteristics, American.

Liberty--History.

Liberty.

History.

United States--History.

United States.

United States--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

United States--History--Pictorial works.

Genre:

Pictorial works.

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

851 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.

Summary:

Liberty and Freedom: Most Americans agree that these great principles are fundamental to our nation. But what do they mean to us, and how have their meanings changed through time? In this strikingly original book, David Hackett Fischer finds that liberty and freedom-two varying ideas-form the intertwined strand that runs through the core of American life. Like DNA, these notions have recombined in new forms with every generation. Fischer examines liberty and freedom in a new way, not as academic abstractions or political ideologies, but as folkways that are deeply embedded in American life-what Tocqueville called "habits of the heart." The words themselves, Fischer finds, had different origins. The Latin libertas implied separation and independence. The Indo-European root of "freedom" meant rights of belonging in a community of free people. Most Western languages have a word for either liberty or freedom; English-speakers have both. The tension between them has been a source of conflict and creativity throughout American history. This book studies American ideas of liberty and freedom as visions of an open society, through the symbols they have inspired from the Revolutionary era through 9/11. Before 1776, a variety of icons appeared throughout the colonies: New England's Liberty Trees, New York's Liberty Poles, Pennsylvania's Liberty Bells, South Carolina's Liberty Crescents, and backcountry rattlesnakes that warned "Don't tread on me." After independence, the search for a common vision inspired new symbols with other meanings: the eagle, the flag, Yankee Doodle, Uncle Sam, Brother Jonathan, and Miss Liberty.

In the nineteenth century the nation was riven by a conflict of liberty against freedom, culminating in the Civil War, which transformed both ideas. After the war, larger visions of universal freedom were invented by Americans who had been excluded from a free republic: new immigrants, Indians, and former slaves. The most fertile period of creativity was the twentieth century, when liberty and freedom were tested by enemies abroad and transformed by challenges at home. Today, new visions of a free society are multiplying around the globe. In their dynamism and diversity, these expanding ideas of liberty and freedom have made America and the world more open than any single vision ever was. Illustrated in full color, Liberty and Freedom is literally an eye-opening book-large-spirited, stimulating, and, ultimately, inspiring.

Contents:

Introduction : a conversation with Captain Preston

Early America : visions of the Founders, 1607-1775

A republic united : the search for a common vision, 1775-1840

A nation divided : liberty against freedom, 1840-1912

A world at war : a free society and its enemies, 1916-1945

A people among others : global visions of liberty and freedom, 1945-2004

Conclusion : the view from Tocqueville's terrace.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 739-818) and index.

Local Notes:

Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon Hackney.

Storage copy signed by Sheldon Hackney in front.

Storage copy has MS. notes by Sheldon Hackney at end.

ISBN:

0195162536

OCLC:

54686077