This book covers the history of America
as an actor on the world stage, with particular focus on how American
actions and rhetoric have influenced both the ideas and the reality
of liberty through out the world. There were some things I like about
this book, particularly the fact that the book started back before
the Revolution showing how the great awakening and other early events
influenced America’s relationship with ideas of liberty, and how
the book traced the influence of religious ideas on American society
through our history.
Widmer emphasizes through out the book
how changing and unclear the definition of “freedom” and
“liberty” often are when you look at how people use them. But he
does not pause to consider what the words really do mean. He
obviously does have a definite of idea what the correct definitions of
the words are. But Widmer’s definitions are never stated, they are
left unexplored and unexamined, though the assumption can be seen in
the way statements are evaluated as correctly refracting, or not
reflecting, liberty.
This was a major problem with the book
for me. Because while I agreed with some points he considered part of
liberty, I see other points he included, like “the right of
everyone to a good job,” to be unconnected or even antithetical to
liberty. Without Widmer’s reasoning and assumptions being made
explicit it was impossible to know which of his evaluations I could
trust.
This review was based on the audio edition, read by William Hughes
Hi Alia I will read this blog and get back to you.
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