Share <Embed>

+ $5.07 shipping

Arrives: Feb 11 - 17

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from	KITSCH.MAVEN
Sold by	KITSCH.MAVEN

Details

Ships from

KITSCH.MAVEN

Sold by

KITSCH.MAVEN

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon or get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

Used: Good | Details

Sold by TrueBooks247

Fulfilled by Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

$28.76
+ $5.13 shipping

Sold by: galatahome

$29.95
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: squarebooks100

$38.99
& FREE Shipping on eligible orders. Details

Sold by: Cosmopolitebook store

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Follow the Author

Daniel Hannan

Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World Hardcover – November 19, 2013

by Daniel Hannan (Author)

219 ratings

See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$8.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$25.89

$25.69

$2.46

Paperback

"Please retry"

$10.29

$5.30

$5.65

Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged

"Please retry"

—

$227.51

—

British politician Daniel Hannan's Inventing Freedom is an ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.

According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—are the legacy of a very specific tradition that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited.

By the tenth century, England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights. The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories—the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. Constitution—and how it came to defeat every international rival.

Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. Inventing Freedom is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.

Frequently bought together

Total price: $68.86

These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World by Daniel Hannan Hardcover $25.89
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by KITSCH.MAVEN.
Why America Must Not Follow Europe (Encounter Broadsides) by Daniel Hannan Paperback $5.99
Only 6 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.00. Details
How We Invented Freedom & Why It Matters by Head Of Zeus Paperback $36.98
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by Book Shop 101.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Caroline Robbins
10
Paperback
$12.00
Forrest McDonald
61
Paperback
$16.95
Hans L. Eicholz
4
Paperback
$17.45
Bertrand de Jouvenel
36
Paperback
$14.50
Daniel Hannan
163
Hardcover
$18.99
153
Hardcover
10 offers from $8.43

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Daniel Hannan
163
Hardcover
$18.99
Helen Pluckrose
1,699
Hardcover
in Modern Philosophy
$19.61
Thomas Sowell
888
Hardcover
in Educational Law & Legislation Law
$20.20
Bertrand de Jouvenel
36
Paperback
$14.50
Andrew Roberts
2,579
Hardcover
$32.99
Hans L. Eicholz
4
Paperback
$17.45

Special offers and product promotions

Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account

Editorial Reviews

Review

“With the eloquence of Macaulay or Trevelyan―both of whom are liberally quoted here―Hannan sweeps us through English history to show the triumph of law-based liberty and “that total understanding which can only exist between people speaking the same tongue.” (The Telegraph (UK))

“Hannan’s well-written book is an excellent politically incorrect history of England.” (Washington Free Beacon)

“Equal parts history and political theory, Inventing Freedom is a thought-provoking and stirring read for the holidays.” (The Blaze)

From the Back Cover

Why does the world speak English? Why does every country at least pretend to aspire to representative government, personal freedom, and an independent judiciary?

In The New Road to Serfdom, British politician Daniel Hannan exhorted Americans not to abandon the principles that have made our country great. Inventing Freedom is a much more ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of those principles, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.

According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—are not broadly "Western" in the usual sense of the term. Rather they are the legacy of a very specific tradition, one that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited.

The first English kingdoms, as they emerged from the Dark Ages, already had unique characteristics that would develop into what we now call constitutional government. By the tenth century, a thousand years before most modern countries, England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights.

The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How, repressed after the Norman Conquest, it reasserted itself; how it developed during the civil wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into the modern liberal-democratic tradition; how it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories—the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. Constitution—and how it came to defeat every international rival.

Yet there was nothing inevitable about it. Anglosphere values could easily have been snuffed out in the 1940s. And they would not be ascendant today if the Cold War had ended differently.

Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. The current U.S. president, in particular, seems determined to deride and traduce the Anglosphere values that the Founders took for granted. Inventing Freedom explains why the extraordinary idea that the state was the servant, not the ruler, of the individual evolved uniquely in the English-speaking world. It is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.

Publisher : Broadside Books; 1st Edition (November 19, 2013)
Language : English
Hardcover : 416 pages
ISBN-10 : 0062231731
ISBN-13 : 978-0062231734
Item Weight : 1.24 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1.29 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #955,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,008 in Democracy (Books)
- #2,932 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Books)
- #7,544 in History & Theory of Politics

Customer Reviews:
219 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		75%
4 star		16%
3 star		5%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Eileen Pollock

Erudite, Provocative, Counterintuitive

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2013

Verified Purchase

Daniel Hannan is clearly on the side of the principles that made the English-speaking countries bastions of stable government - foremost, the rule of law. First, there were principles - individual rights, private property, representative government - then institutions that enshrined and enforced these principles. Why is it that England and its former colonies have governments that represent the people to a greater or lesser degree, while the former colonies of France and Spain are unstable autocracies cloaked in the figleaf of a constitution ignored in practice? Why is England stable, while Peru is not? It takes a book to answer the question, and Hannan begins with the orgins of the rule of law in ancient England. The invading Normans adopted the nascent institutions of the Anglo-Saxons and began to think of themselves as English. What he calls the two civil wars are recounted in fascinating detail - the first being the English Glorious Revolution of 1688, the second the American revolution, which Hannan considers not a revolution by Americans against the British, but a civil war in which the colonies viewed themselves British and the English rulers as violating the colonies' rights as British subjects. Each chapter is considered in historical detail, overturning many received assumptions. The chapter on Anglobalization examines in turn the nations of the United Kingdom and the interesting case of India. Always, Hannan is enlightening and erudite. You can learn much from reading this book, and it's a keeper on my bookshelf.

88 people found this helpful

Helpful

M. Lozano

Language unites a nation's people

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

'Inventing Freedom' demonstrates the inherent relationship the English speaking peoples have with each other. I agree with Hannan's argument how Britain, through its value systems of self-government and property rights, transformed many parts of the world. America, as Britain's former colony, elevated those value systems to a purer form. However, Hannan also argues that these value systems are tied to Protestant ethics. I think more exploration on this argument could have been provided as it was not entirely convincing. Was Protestantism truly the cause how Great Britain and Europe became economic powerhouses or was it the fall of monarchies that eventually led to this state. Given the current climate of Europe today and the centralization of power to the State, how have the ethics of Protestantism not protected the self-governing spirit of Great Britain and Europe?

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Clay GarnerTop Contributor: Philosophy

“This Bible is for the government of the people, for the people and by the people.” The author was the theologian John Wycliffe

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

“Inventing Freedom - How the English-speaking people made the modern world’.

Hannan writes with a smooth, light pen. Easy to follow. Clearly presented and focuses on the evidence, not personalities.

He reaches back to historical works to show connections to present. For instance . . .

“On November 19, 1863, at in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln, made a speech that lasted for just over two minutes, and ended with his hope “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Why connected to English language?

“Those words have been quoted ever since, as the supreme vindication of representative government. Indeed, they are often quoted as proof of American exceptionalism. But the words were not Lincoln’s. Most of his hearers would have recognized their source, as our generation does not. They came from the prologue to what was probably the earliest translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English language:

“This Bible is for the government of the people, for the people and by the people.” The author was the theologian John Wycliffe, sometimes called “the Morning Star of the Reformation.” Astonishingly, the words had first appeared in 1384.’’

‘John Wycliffe’! Wow!

“Above all, and exceptionally for his time, Wycliffe believed in the centrality of the Bible. He taught that people should read the scriptures for themselves and not rely on the interpretation of priests and prelates.’’

This distrust of authority runs down to today. The individualist, personal, determined English love of liberty can clearly be explained by biblical reading as well as Anglo-Saxon roots.

“The idea that everyone should read the scriptures had egalitarian and democratic implications. Those who strove to, as they saw it, perfect the Reformation by abolishing bishops and allowing congregations to elect their leaders, were consciously campaigning for representative rather than hierarchical government. Their religious convictions were bound to spill over into their political opinions. These groups—Puritans in England, Presbyterians in Scotland and Northern Ireland, Nonconformists and Methodists in Wales, and the coreligionists of all these groups in the New World—provided the core of Whig support down the ages, though that party was sometimes called by different names.’’

Introduction: The Anglosphere Miracle
1 The Same Language, the Same Hymns, the Same Ideals
2 Anglo-Saxon Liberties
3 Rediscovering England
4 Liberty and Property
5 The First Anglosphere Civil War
6 The Second Anglosphere Civil War
7 Anglobalization
8 From Empire to Anglosphere
9 Consider What Nation It Is Whereof Ye Are
Conclusion: Anglosphere Twilight?

One theme is that the American Revolution is misnamed. He explains (in detail) why it should be called the ‘Second English civil war.’

“The day after Paul Revere’s ride, April 19, 1775, the first shots were fired in what most contemporaries took to be the second English Civil War—a continuation, in many ways, of the first. No one at that stage thought of the conflict as being between two distinct nations.’’

Another key conclusion is the significance of Puritan faith.

“Tocqueville, too, was struck by the connection, and could see that that political culture now covered English-speakers of all faiths. Again, he traced it back to its point de départ:

“When I consider all that has resulted from this first fact, I think I can see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on these shores.” That Puritan—like those of his coreligionists who remained behind—had necessarily created a distinction between the public and private spheres, between state and church, between Caesar’s realm and God’s.’’

This American political culture contrasts with French Revolution . . .

“From the first, the radical tradition in Europe was violent. The repression that followed the French Revolution is known as “the Terror.” That name, however, was not bestowed by opponents of the Revolution; on the contrary, it was taken up by the Jacobins themselves. On September 5, 1792, the revolutionaries announced their policy in these terms:

“It is time that equality bore its scythe above all heads. It is time to horrify all the conspirators. So, legislators, place Terror on the order of the day! The blade of the law should hover over all the guilty.”

Wow! French lawyers were the first terrorists!

After examining history, explaining culture, analyzing politics, what does Hannan conclude?

“The answer lies neither in politics nor in history, but in psychology. The more we learn about how the brain works, the more we discover that people’s political opinions tend to be a rationalization of their instincts. We subconsciously pick the data that sustain our prejudices, and block out those that don’t.’’

Confirmation bias is everything!

“We can generally spot this tendency in other people; we almost never acknowledge it in ourselves. A neat illustration of the phenomenon is the debate over global warming. At first glance, it seems odd that climate change should divide commentators along left–right lines. Science, after all, depends on data, not on our attitudes to taxation or defense or the family. The trouble is that that we all have assumptions, scientists as much as anyone else.’’

Are assumptions so bad?

“When presented with a new discovery, we automatically try to press it into our existing belief system; if it doesn’t fit, we question the discovery before the belief system. Sometimes this habit leads us into error. But without it, we should hardly survive at all. As Edmund Burke argued, life would become impossible if we tried to think through every new situation from first principles, disregarding both our own experience and the accumulated wisdom of our people—if, in other words, we shed all prejudice.’’

This is subtle, but profound.

“If you begin with the belief that wealthy countries became wealthy by exploiting poor ones, that state action does more good than harm, and that we could all afford to pay a bit more tax, you are likelier than not to accept a thesis that seems to demand government intervention, supranational technocracy, and global wealth redistribution.’’

‘Belief systems are trusted’ but ‘facts’ are not!

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

SaxmanAlex

Stating the obvious (but unpopular) view of where freedom came from

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is an essential book for understanding why the freedom literature mostly emanated from England and then English-speaking lands derived from mother England. America is free and powerful because English law took a foothold here. If the French had prevailed, we would look and feel like Quebec. If the Spanish prevailed, we would look like Mexico or Peru (where the author grew up). If the Portuguese prevailed, we would look like Brazil. This sense of freedom predates Magna Carta, as the author shows. The conclusion may be politically incorrect these days, but somebody had to say it, and a British delegate to the European Union who also lived in South America may be the ideal person to make this case.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

D. Andrews

A Timely Reminder of the Importance of Freedom

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2016

Verified Purchase

This book takes the reader on a journey of the history of the Anglosphere, a tale of two philosophies locked in battle for control of the political culture of the English. The first a tyranny of kings and absolutist rule, the second a liberty founded in rule of law, parliamentarianism, rugged individualism. The story focuses, quite rightly, on the concept of English Common Law - that body of culture and belief that sees the law of the land being something that comes from the people, bottom-up, as contrasted with the top-down civil-law based views of Europe where the law is imposed by philosopher-kings who, of course, know better than lesser mortals. The book is not just about history, but about the very current political situation in the Anglosphere and how Common Law has become increasingly battered and eroded by those same forces that once beat in the hearts of the Stuart kings and other tyrants of the world. The message of the book is clear: we must remember who we are, and the great treasure of freedom we have given and can yet give to the rest of the world.

2 people found this helpful

Peter M. Howell

A fine narrative and a lesson worth knowing.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 27, 2017

Verified Purchase

An easy read and points to worthwhile and prideful consequences of 'English culture' and language often ignored by the beneficiaries.

Yorkshire Lass

Everyone should read this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

A brilliant read and an important and valuable work that should be essential reading for everyone. The premise behind this book is vitally important.

4 people found this helpful

Liz G.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2018

Verified Purchase

Excellent book.

Kindle Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

good, thanks

See all reviews