Liberty and Tyranny

by Francis W. Hirst

NEW in shrinkwrap, bound in leather with gold stamping on cover/spine, gilded page edges, hubbed spine and ribbon bookmark. ---MADE IN USA—Few thinkers of the period between the twentieth century's world wars had as realistic a grasp of the dangerous political climate as Francis Hirst. Fewer still sounded the alarm as urgently. Astonished by the blindness to the perils developing in Germany and Italy and even more so by his peers' admiration of the Soviet Union, where mass murder was openly carried out, Hirst published, in 1935, Liberty and Tyranny. He After the Great War we awoke with a shock to see liberty and democracy everywhere threatened, affronted, challenged, assaulted. Since then we have seen great nations - under the influence, no doubt, of defeat or depression or despair - deliberately vote away their freedom, and consign themselves to the tender mercies of a dictatorship based upon force and maintained by terror. This classic, grounded in knowledge of history and economics remains a compelling statement. Its review of the growth of political liberty in England is followed by an analysis of tyranny, "a weed that may grow in any age."

300 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Francis Wrigley Hirst was a British journalist, writer and and Liberal politician. He was editor of The Economist magazine from 1907 to 1916. He was a classical liberal in ideology and defended Gladstonian orthodoxy even when it was largely out of date.

Reviews

[Clay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Hirst presented an interesting discussion of the classic struggle between freedom and oppression from time immemorial through the years leading up to the 2d world war. Although written in 1935, his discussion of humanity's struggles through the ages is as ripe for reading today as it was then.