Mother Jones staff highlight their favorite books they read in 2024. Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media (2022) By Jacob Mchangama Nonfiction The latest battle in the 2,500-year war over free speech came to a head during the vice presidential debate. “We actually do have a threat to democracy,” said JD Vance, as […]
By Jeremy Schulman In December, Trump adviser Kash Patel set off alarm bells when he said that if the former president returns to the Oval Office, his new administration might prosecute media figures and others “who lied about American citizens.” “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Patel told Steve […]
At WGCU Radio in Southwest Florida, Mike Kiniry recently interviewed Jacob Mchangama about current threats to free speech and his book Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. ___ After the United States Constitution was ratified, Congress adopted ten amendments which were then ratified by three-fourths of the states, and these ten amendments […]
Exciting news! Jacob Mchangama’s Free Speech book has been translated into Arabic by Ideas Beyond Borders and is now available online. This is a great opportunity for Arabic speakers to learn more about free speech and its history. This comprehensive history of free speech from ancient to modern times traces the history of free speech […]
Jacob gave a talk about the deeper conclusions of his book at the Czech book launch in September.
Here’s a brutal irony about regulating hate speech: Such laws often end up hurting the very people they are supposed to protect. That’s one of the central lessons in Jacob Mchangama’s important new book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. Mchangama heads up the Danish think tank Justitia. He’s worried about a […]
America was built on the premise of free speech, but today’s news is filled with examples of limiting people’s expression – from prohibitions against misinformation, to book bans and state laws restricting how teachers can discuss such topics as racial injustice, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Correspondent David Pogue talks with writers and academics about […]
The roots of free speech are ancient, deep, and sprawling. The Athenian statesman Pericles extolled the democratic values of open debate and tolerance of social dissent in 431 BC. In the ninth century, the irreverent freethinker Ibn al-Rawandi used the fertile intellectual climate of the Abbasid caliphate to question prophecy and holy books. In 1582, […]
A new EU plan targeting extremists ignores history’s lessons about the danger of restricting unpopular views. Shortly before Christmas, the European Commission—the EU’s executive arm—announced a plan with dangerous implications for free speech in Europe. Citing a “tsunami of hate and xenophobia” targeting ethnic and religious minorities, LGBT+ people, the disabled and women, the commission […]
Repression leads to liberalisation and vice versa, says Jacob Mchangama Free Speech. By Jacob Mchangama. Basic Books; 528 pages; $32 and £25 Aglobal firestorm erupted in 2005 after the publication in a Danish newspaper of 12 provocative cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Jacob Mchangama, a Dane and then a young lawyer, was dismayed. In the Muslim world he […]