On Freedom

Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian who wrote On Tyranny, turns here from warning to definition. His argument is that Americans have lost track of what freedom actually means, and that this confusion is pushing the country toward crisis. Many of us treat freedom as the absence of the state: if we can say and do what we like and keep government at a distance, we assume we are free. Snyder says that picture is too thin to hold up.

His alternative is freedom to rather than freedom from. That means the ability to thrive, to take risks, and to build futures we have chosen, together with other people. On this view freedom is the value that makes every other value possible, and it has to be built and sustained rather than simply defended.

The book is a work of political philosophy that moves through the ideas of philosophers and political dissidents, conversations with contemporary thinkers, and Snyder's own memories of growing up in a time of American exceptionalism. From these he draws out the habits of mind and the practices that could support a government in which people now and in generations to come can flourish.

Snyder does not take a side in the usual quarrel. He argues that traditions, which the right tends to champion, matter, and so do institutions, which the left tends to defend. His aim is a new common ground built on abundance, generosity, and grace.