Liberty by Eric Foner

Liberty by Eric Foner



Liberty by Eric Foner

Introduction

In the context of identity heritage of the United States, perhaps none is as crucial idea like freedom, so essential to define the collective consciousness of American people and stands as any other in their political vocabulary. Also plays a leading role in the legitimacy of national institutions and is invaluable as a mechanism of social cohesion. The same government rhetoric has tended to identify national interests with universal interest: the liberation of mankind as a whole, giving the country's mission to make "as beacons of humanity" (a position that easily slides into the arrogance and inspiring style phraseology "Our nation is the greatest force for good in history" - George W. Bush -). In captivating book originally published in 1998, historian Eric Foner (New York, 1943) traces the path of the idea of freedom in the history of the American republic.

A totally free market barriers was conceived as a privileged space for individual and collective achievement and market competition became "a kind of archetype of freedom of the individual" (Norbert Elias). The expansion of wealth and the deterioration of a common public culture have tended to put the consumer at the place formerly reserved to citizens, civic trivializing political language. In the opinion of the author, the picture did not improve in the years following the end of the Cold War. The book conveys a critical view of U.S. history, or history operating as an alternative to narratives of heroic tone and accommodating. Undoubtedly offers a fascinating reading.

Discussion and Analysis

The approach is led by a dynamic conception of freedom: not as a fixed, predetermined category under which an assessment of the U.S. history, but as a contested concept equipped with alternative meanings, an idea that changes with times and whose margins expand or restrict the circumstances. The book consists of a first major issue is the constant remodeling of the conceptual map of freedom in the U.S., or how this idea has been reconfiguring the heat of events, political rivalries, social and economic tensions, the thrust of emancipatory movements, friction between dominant cultural paradigms and dissidents, geographic and demographic expansion and war.

The second major issue is the political and social conditions of freedom, that is, the circumstances necessary for its consolidation into a highly dynamic society and conflicts significant as the U.S. (one of whose sources of tension lies in the ambiguous relation modernity understood as secularization and liberalization of social practices, raises profound rejection of traditionalist). This issue is defining what Americans have been regarded as illegitimate coercion or obstacles to freedom (slavery, segregation of ethnic minorities, discrimination against immigrants, the state, social pressures towards cultural homogenization, concentration of economic power, etc.) In addition to establishing the ways in which socio-economic relations and public institutions have affected the availability of a field of action and choice for individuals. The third major issue is the definition of groups that have enjoyed the benefits of freedom issue which ...