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Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword
A provocative, timely assessment of the state of free speech in America
With his best seller The Working Poor, Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times veteran David K. Shipler cemented his place among our most trenchant social commentators. Now he turns his incisive reporting to a critical American freedom of speech. Anchored in personal stories—sometimes shocking, sometimes absurd, sometimes dishearteningly familiar—Shipler’s investigations of the cultural limits on both expression and the willingness to listen build to expose troubling instabilities in the very foundations of our democracy.
Focusing on recent free speech controversies across the nation, Shipler maps a rapidly shifting topography of political and cultural parents in Michigan rallying to teachers vilified for their reading lists; conservative ministers risking their churches’ tax-exempt status to preach politics from the pulpit; national security reporters using techniques more common in dictatorships to avoid leak prosecution; a Washington, D.C., Jewish theater’s struggle for creative control in the face of protests targeting productions critical of Israel; history teachers in Texas quietly bypassing a reactionary curriculum to give students access to unapproved perspectives; the mixed blessings of the Internet as a forum for dialogue about race.
These and other stories coalesce to reveal the systemic patterns of both suppression and opportunity that are making today a transitional moment for the future of one of our founding principles. Measured yet sweeping, Freedom of Speech brilliantly reveals the triumphs and challenges of defining and protecting the boundaries of free expression in modern America.
With his best seller The Working Poor, Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times veteran David K. Shipler cemented his place among our most trenchant social commentators. Now he turns his incisive reporting to a critical American freedom of speech. Anchored in personal stories—sometimes shocking, sometimes absurd, sometimes dishearteningly familiar—Shipler’s investigations of the cultural limits on both expression and the willingness to listen build to expose troubling instabilities in the very foundations of our democracy.
Focusing on recent free speech controversies across the nation, Shipler maps a rapidly shifting topography of political and cultural parents in Michigan rallying to teachers vilified for their reading lists; conservative ministers risking their churches’ tax-exempt status to preach politics from the pulpit; national security reporters using techniques more common in dictatorships to avoid leak prosecution; a Washington, D.C., Jewish theater’s struggle for creative control in the face of protests targeting productions critical of Israel; history teachers in Texas quietly bypassing a reactionary curriculum to give students access to unapproved perspectives; the mixed blessings of the Internet as a forum for dialogue about race.
These and other stories coalesce to reveal the systemic patterns of both suppression and opportunity that are making today a transitional moment for the future of one of our founding principles. Measured yet sweeping, Freedom of Speech brilliantly reveals the triumphs and challenges of defining and protecting the boundaries of free expression in modern America.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 12, 2015
About the author
David K. Shipler
16 books90 followersDavid K. Shipler reported for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988 in New York, Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem, and Washington. He is the author of four other books, including the best sellers Russia and The Working Poor, and Arab and Jew, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has taught at Princeton University, at American University in Washington, D.C., and at Dartmouth College.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 4, 2018
Somewhat disappointing. It reads like a series of magazine articles rather than a thematic whole with little but the title connecting the parts as we jump from high school book controversies to government whistleblowers to Islamophobia to the Ciitzens United case to a controversial Israeli play performed on a Washington, D. C. stage. On their own these articles might have been interesting, but it is a slow read precisely because it seemed so random.
October 10, 2015
This book focuses on "big picture" free speech issues: national security, discussion of Israel & Palestine in the US, presidential threats, and similar; it tackles these big subjects in a pretty time honored way, by presenting anecdotal cases, generally devoting one or two chapters to each area. This allows him to present the issues, and discuss some of how it manifests in the US. Although the author presents the facts and some of the arguments on all sides, he doesn't try to pretend to be an uninterested observer.
The stories themselves are interesting and it's well-written ; this is a book where after setting it down, I felt like I had learned something about the world, and had stuff to think about. I don't know whether it's due to Shipler's skill, or the small world of New York & Washington DC where many of the stories are concentrated, but certain figures kept showing back up and helping bind the stories together.
However, I feel like one thing was missing : these were all 'safe' subjects with 'safe opinions.' Just knowing that the author is a New York Journalist, it would be pretty easy to see where the author comes down on discussion of parent groups trying to ban books containing 'mature themes,' or whistle blowers in government leaking stories of government malfeasance.
There was very little discussion of some of the more controversial areas that get clustered in the 'freedom of speech' umbrella: harassment vs open forums, the role of private organizations like twitter or facebook providing a forum for certain kinds of speech, nor things like corporate freedom of speech: things that are more controversial even or perhaps even especially among the 'liberal elite,' to use a loaded term.
For a book on controversies, it felt very safe, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book.
The stories themselves are interesting and it's well-written ; this is a book where after setting it down, I felt like I had learned something about the world, and had stuff to think about. I don't know whether it's due to Shipler's skill, or the small world of New York & Washington DC where many of the stories are concentrated, but certain figures kept showing back up and helping bind the stories together.
However, I feel like one thing was missing : these were all 'safe' subjects with 'safe opinions.' Just knowing that the author is a New York Journalist, it would be pretty easy to see where the author comes down on discussion of parent groups trying to ban books containing 'mature themes,' or whistle blowers in government leaking stories of government malfeasance.
There was very little discussion of some of the more controversial areas that get clustered in the 'freedom of speech' umbrella: harassment vs open forums, the role of private organizations like twitter or facebook providing a forum for certain kinds of speech, nor things like corporate freedom of speech: things that are more controversial even or perhaps even especially among the 'liberal elite,' to use a loaded term.
For a book on controversies, it felt very safe, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book.
October 19, 2017
2.25 / 5.0
Enticing topic. Book starts with nice intro. Outlines what promises to be a well researched critical examination of current trends. First couple of chapters stay on track albiet with classic good liberal progressive bad narrow minded conservative aftertaste. By midpoint of book it starts getting tough to follow tenuous link to "Freedom of Speech". Last is basically several case studies of political dispute over content itself rather than freedom to express content. I sympathized with the points and the issues raised but failed to see how they belonged in this book. Author did very little to connect last few chapters to purported central theme of freedom of speech. Sad that book divides so completely along liberal good conservative bad lines. Probably damages the tone of the conversation rather than enhancing its understanding.
This is from someone who agrees with the authors positions but disagrees that a book with this title was the appropriate venue to expand upon them.
Enticing topic. Book starts with nice intro. Outlines what promises to be a well researched critical examination of current trends. First couple of chapters stay on track albiet with classic good liberal progressive bad narrow minded conservative aftertaste. By midpoint of book it starts getting tough to follow tenuous link to "Freedom of Speech". Last is basically several case studies of political dispute over content itself rather than freedom to express content. I sympathized with the points and the issues raised but failed to see how they belonged in this book. Author did very little to connect last few chapters to purported central theme of freedom of speech. Sad that book divides so completely along liberal good conservative bad lines. Probably damages the tone of the conversation rather than enhancing its understanding.
This is from someone who agrees with the authors positions but disagrees that a book with this title was the appropriate venue to expand upon them.
October 3, 2015
Originally published at Reading Reality
Most of the time, freedom of speech is an abstract concept. And even though it is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the interpretation of what that simple phrase, “freedom of speech”, means in real life often depends on interpretation, and on which side of the current debate you might happen to be on.
The text in the U.S. Constitution reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
One of the things that people often miss is that the direction of this law is to Congress. As written, it reflects the things that governments might want to do to us – it doesn’t actually address things that we might do to each other as private citizens.
There are a few legal restrictions on the freedom of speech, but there are many other ways to restrict speech. This book discusses real cases of where the freedom of speech has come under attack or into question, and by personalizing these stories provides a way for us to appreciate both the strengths and the limitations of those few brief words in the Constitution.
The author has grouped the situations where the “rubber meets the road” as far as free speech is concerned into some very challenging situations. The issues that he covers are: censorship, whistleblowing, bigotry, politics and culture. Because free speech is challenged in different ways and through different means in each of these instances.
One of the contradictions that is made unflinchingly clear, we may have freedom of speech, however, it may be abridged, or chilled or denied. What we don’t have (and generally shouldn’t) is the freedom from the consequences of that speech. And whether we like it or not, the challenges to our freedom of speech may very well be people who firmly believe that they are defending it.
Or us.
Reality Rating A: It’s the way that the author has personalized the abstract that brings this book to life. He doesn’t just talk in glowing platitudes about the freedom of speech, he takes deep dives into the hearts and minds who have fought, or are being fought, to protect or abridge that right.
And he also dissects some of the ways that free speech hurts, and why that makes it even more necessary.
The first section immediately drew me in, because it covered censorship, particularly as it applies to library book bannings and challenges. This is a subject with which I’m intimately familiar. At one of my former places of work, I was the person tasked with responding to challenges and overseeing the formation and the work of the staff assigned to serve on challenge committees and make recommendations.
Even though this is Banned Books Week, the reality is that in today’s climate, books are challenged rather than banned. And it is generally books aimed at a teenage audience, although not always. As the author demonstrates by getting into the cases in Missouri (Slaughterhouse Five), Michigan (Waterland and Beloved), New York State (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and practically everywhere (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian). The late-breaking case about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in Tennessee shows that this is very much still happening. The one area where even childrens’ books get challenged is homosexuality, as the cases of Heather Has Two Mommies, And Tango Makes Three and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding make perfectly clear.
But in all these cases, the parental request is not to ban the book from the world, or even the U.S. This is impossible. But it generally comes down to “not their child” or “not for children” or “not at school”. They are often trying to maintain their child’s innocence just a little longer, and resent a school system that prefers to expose their children to what many people believe is the real world.
The striking thing is that such challenges always include the caveat that the person is not against freedom of speech, merely that this one thing, whatever it is, and whether they’ve read it or not, should not be protected, or that their children should be protected from it.
What is also clear in this section is that censorship can take many other, and more insidious, forms. Teachers in schools are unfortunately forced to teach to their state’s tests. And those tests can reflect biases and perspectives that support a political agenda or maintain the status quo. One of the big debates right now is about American exceptionalism and the beneficence of capitalism. Materials that do not reflect the desired perspective can be excised from the curriculum, and even where the teachers have limited freedom to teach from materials that are outside the curriculum, they may be squeezed out of those lessons by the unrelenting pressure of time to prepare their students for the tests.
Should we learn how the rest of the world views us while we are in high school, or should such knowledge wait until adulthood? Of course, with the prevalence of echo chambers on the internet, if we don’t seek out views that challenge our own, we may never find them.
The chapters on whistleblowers and the cost to those who choose to expose wrongdoing in organizations of which they are a part, especially when those organizations are the government, is chilling. The press may have freedom, and speech may be free, but the cost to individual whistleblowers is life-changing in a catastrophic way. And yet, a free society needs people who are willing to shine lights into dark places and risk the excoriation, persecution and sometimes prosecution that follows. By interviewing less famous whistleblowers, the author shines a light on how speech can be suppressed by the chilling effect of a threat to one’s job, one’s security, one’s personal freedom. And it gives us a little light into why people do it anyway.
Each section is like the two I have described. The author illustrates this abstract concept of freedom of speech by giving us real people and real situations to follow and empathize with. The sections on bigotry, hate speech and conspiracy theorists are particularly chilling, at least in part because those are areas we often feel squidgy about.
I found the last section particularly riveting. The story is about a very edgy artistic director at Theater J, an often flying-on-the-edge of controversy theater at the Jewish Community Center in Washington D.C. The art director put on challenging productions that often sold out, but equally often asked questions about Jewish themes and Israel’s place in the world and some of its past acts and policies that made some people very uncomfortable, out of a fear that questioning Israel’s actions might erode Israel’s U.S. support in Congress. The Q&A sessions after the productions were intellectually challenging and provocative. But because some of those plays shone a harsher light on some of Israel’s acts than certain conservative felt was desirable, there was a lot of push-back from potential donors to the Theater’s parent organization. We see the increasing pressure, as fears about money and perceptions that the Theater may be willing to go further out than its organization feels it can tolerate, create more and more artistic compromises. Speech may be free, but the cost to exercise it is not.
In writing this review, I took a look to see what had happened to the artistic director. He was fired, after 18 years as artistic director, because he wasn’t willing to back off from that intellectually challenging edge. He’s started another theater company elsewhere in DC, but his story shows that the cost of standing on that ledge of freedom of speech can be high.
If you are interested in putting human faces and voices to that abstract concept of freedom of speech, read this book.
Most of the time, freedom of speech is an abstract concept. And even though it is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the interpretation of what that simple phrase, “freedom of speech”, means in real life often depends on interpretation, and on which side of the current debate you might happen to be on.
The text in the U.S. Constitution reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
One of the things that people often miss is that the direction of this law is to Congress. As written, it reflects the things that governments might want to do to us – it doesn’t actually address things that we might do to each other as private citizens.
There are a few legal restrictions on the freedom of speech, but there are many other ways to restrict speech. This book discusses real cases of where the freedom of speech has come under attack or into question, and by personalizing these stories provides a way for us to appreciate both the strengths and the limitations of those few brief words in the Constitution.
The author has grouped the situations where the “rubber meets the road” as far as free speech is concerned into some very challenging situations. The issues that he covers are: censorship, whistleblowing, bigotry, politics and culture. Because free speech is challenged in different ways and through different means in each of these instances.
One of the contradictions that is made unflinchingly clear, we may have freedom of speech, however, it may be abridged, or chilled or denied. What we don’t have (and generally shouldn’t) is the freedom from the consequences of that speech. And whether we like it or not, the challenges to our freedom of speech may very well be people who firmly believe that they are defending it.
Or us.
Reality Rating A: It’s the way that the author has personalized the abstract that brings this book to life. He doesn’t just talk in glowing platitudes about the freedom of speech, he takes deep dives into the hearts and minds who have fought, or are being fought, to protect or abridge that right.
And he also dissects some of the ways that free speech hurts, and why that makes it even more necessary.
The first section immediately drew me in, because it covered censorship, particularly as it applies to library book bannings and challenges. This is a subject with which I’m intimately familiar. At one of my former places of work, I was the person tasked with responding to challenges and overseeing the formation and the work of the staff assigned to serve on challenge committees and make recommendations.
Even though this is Banned Books Week, the reality is that in today’s climate, books are challenged rather than banned. And it is generally books aimed at a teenage audience, although not always. As the author demonstrates by getting into the cases in Missouri (Slaughterhouse Five), Michigan (Waterland and Beloved), New York State (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and practically everywhere (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian). The late-breaking case about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in Tennessee shows that this is very much still happening. The one area where even childrens’ books get challenged is homosexuality, as the cases of Heather Has Two Mommies, And Tango Makes Three and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding make perfectly clear.
But in all these cases, the parental request is not to ban the book from the world, or even the U.S. This is impossible. But it generally comes down to “not their child” or “not for children” or “not at school”. They are often trying to maintain their child’s innocence just a little longer, and resent a school system that prefers to expose their children to what many people believe is the real world.
The striking thing is that such challenges always include the caveat that the person is not against freedom of speech, merely that this one thing, whatever it is, and whether they’ve read it or not, should not be protected, or that their children should be protected from it.
What is also clear in this section is that censorship can take many other, and more insidious, forms. Teachers in schools are unfortunately forced to teach to their state’s tests. And those tests can reflect biases and perspectives that support a political agenda or maintain the status quo. One of the big debates right now is about American exceptionalism and the beneficence of capitalism. Materials that do not reflect the desired perspective can be excised from the curriculum, and even where the teachers have limited freedom to teach from materials that are outside the curriculum, they may be squeezed out of those lessons by the unrelenting pressure of time to prepare their students for the tests.
Should we learn how the rest of the world views us while we are in high school, or should such knowledge wait until adulthood? Of course, with the prevalence of echo chambers on the internet, if we don’t seek out views that challenge our own, we may never find them.
The chapters on whistleblowers and the cost to those who choose to expose wrongdoing in organizations of which they are a part, especially when those organizations are the government, is chilling. The press may have freedom, and speech may be free, but the cost to individual whistleblowers is life-changing in a catastrophic way. And yet, a free society needs people who are willing to shine lights into dark places and risk the excoriation, persecution and sometimes prosecution that follows. By interviewing less famous whistleblowers, the author shines a light on how speech can be suppressed by the chilling effect of a threat to one’s job, one’s security, one’s personal freedom. And it gives us a little light into why people do it anyway.
Each section is like the two I have described. The author illustrates this abstract concept of freedom of speech by giving us real people and real situations to follow and empathize with. The sections on bigotry, hate speech and conspiracy theorists are particularly chilling, at least in part because those are areas we often feel squidgy about.
I found the last section particularly riveting. The story is about a very edgy artistic director at Theater J, an often flying-on-the-edge of controversy theater at the Jewish Community Center in Washington D.C. The art director put on challenging productions that often sold out, but equally often asked questions about Jewish themes and Israel’s place in the world and some of its past acts and policies that made some people very uncomfortable, out of a fear that questioning Israel’s actions might erode Israel’s U.S. support in Congress. The Q&A sessions after the productions were intellectually challenging and provocative. But because some of those plays shone a harsher light on some of Israel’s acts than certain conservative felt was desirable, there was a lot of push-back from potential donors to the Theater’s parent organization. We see the increasing pressure, as fears about money and perceptions that the Theater may be willing to go further out than its organization feels it can tolerate, create more and more artistic compromises. Speech may be free, but the cost to exercise it is not.
In writing this review, I took a look to see what had happened to the artistic director. He was fired, after 18 years as artistic director, because he wasn’t willing to back off from that intellectually challenging edge. He’s started another theater company elsewhere in DC, but his story shows that the cost of standing on that ledge of freedom of speech can be high.
If you are interested in putting human faces and voices to that abstract concept of freedom of speech, read this book.
September 9, 2020
Freedom of Speech, by David K. Shipler; Alfred A. Knopf: New York; $28.95, hardback
What makes America great? It is, among nations, one of the few places you can speak your mind, and not go to jail for it. Indeed, it is enshrined in our Constitutional Bill of Rights. Not so fast! America is a huge, diverse land. We are diverse in so many things that what one may say may greatly outrage another. To maintain public harmony, Freedom of Speech has become one of our most cherished and debated topics. David K. Shipler, foreign reporter for the New York Times, author, and in fact Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his work Arab and Jew, weighs in on this mighty subject.
Shipler's subtext is that Freedom of Speech is 'Mightier than the sword." He does so because he shows that in allowing speech to prevail over prejudice, fear, hatred, and ignorance, it serves to make us aware of 'the other'. It dissolves certain fears, makes evident what one really believes, and allows even despicable people to see they are a part of the system. One might also say such a freedom keeps others from going underground with their grievances. Freedom of Speech virtually guarantees that we act as citizens in the open, in the public square of shared ideas.
Shipler offers many examples of how freedom of speech has been suppressed, variously exercised, and how it is currently embattled. Politicians suffer when they make jokes recorded for all history if they are in bad taste to a later audience. But should they be suppressed? Shipler shows how what I can do in my private life often competes with my public capacity. Some schools suppress books, only to find that they are indeed classics. What causes a book to be of value, when a word here and there, in other contexts, are forbidden? What, in the end, should we do about political speech in pulpits? Is your view the same if the speaker is of another religion than yours? What should you justly fear, and how much can a person say before it is libel or slander, hate mongering, violence encouraging, and not freedom of speech?
Good examples are given of each of these questions, and many, many more. This book is valuable because thoughtful, and thoughtful because it is carefully researched. I particularly liked the part where Shipler attended a conference about the alleged dangers of 'jihadism' in America. You'll find it unforgettable, because the outcome is thoroughly thought provoking.
In the end, you'll be introduced to what whistleblowers have done, what techniques news reporters use, and a host of other things which all hearken back to that almost 250 year old document which still works today.
June 17, 2018
Shipler clearly comes into this book with set positions that he wants to impart to the reader. Normally this would be fine, but it ends up distracting from the principles he's trying to defend, and significantly reduces the information density in the book as he goes deep on vaguely related anecdotes. A better alternative for this topic would be Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment. As for me, I'm going to look for better books on the subject.
December 2, 2017
Shipler examines the freedom of speech component of the First Amendment by discussing freedom of speech situations from the 1960s through the Obama administration. He looks at the legal codifications as well customary practices and implied restrictions.
May 30, 2021
Really thoughtful analysis but the topics are a bit obscure at times.
March 6, 2022
A good read to see the evolution of the Freedom of Speech
July 22, 2015
I've used Shipler's "The Working Poor" in a class before, and have always been impressed with the clarity of his writing. This book on Freedom of Speech showcases that writing.
As Americans, we say we value freedom of speech. It is very difficult for us to actually tolerate it, however. Shipler examines cases such as banning books in schools, political speech, and artistic pressure. Though not always successful, Shipler tries to show both sides of the inevitable argument. For example, he acknowledges that parental concern over what their children read is not only understandable, but also necessary. Those two sides to an issue are what add depth to the argument over what should be allowed and what should not.
In an afterword, Shipler mentions that he discovered one of his own books was recently banned. It's "The Working Poor," the very book I have used. The section which was targeted I remember as being strong and significant. Perhaps those who complained had not actually read the book? Or perhaps it's difficult to read a book whose premise frightens you, or watch a play that sets out to make an argument which makes you nervous. How do we define freedom of speech? And what do we value about it? Do we value it enough to actually allow it? I like books that leave the reader with more questions than answers. This is one of those.
As Americans, we say we value freedom of speech. It is very difficult for us to actually tolerate it, however. Shipler examines cases such as banning books in schools, political speech, and artistic pressure. Though not always successful, Shipler tries to show both sides of the inevitable argument. For example, he acknowledges that parental concern over what their children read is not only understandable, but also necessary. Those two sides to an issue are what add depth to the argument over what should be allowed and what should not.
In an afterword, Shipler mentions that he discovered one of his own books was recently banned. It's "The Working Poor," the very book I have used. The section which was targeted I remember as being strong and significant. Perhaps those who complained had not actually read the book? Or perhaps it's difficult to read a book whose premise frightens you, or watch a play that sets out to make an argument which makes you nervous. How do we define freedom of speech? And what do we value about it? Do we value it enough to actually allow it? I like books that leave the reader with more questions than answers. This is one of those.
May 20, 2015
Not since reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature" last year has a book touched on very compelling historical and current subjects that affects humans today as "Freedom of Speech." At a time when words can be stifled, the book sheds light on free speech, and what happens when it's expressed, as well as when it's suppressed. There are some great stories of the heavy price that free speech can have on those with sound minds, as well as those operating on fear-based doctrines. It also highlights cultural norms over time, what happens when it's violated, and what those with strong beliefs are facing. No matter where people are in life, I think that "Freedom of Speech" should be read by everyone. It's an important book that I fear many will miss, but as a reader I value the insights that the author has culled together into this essential volume. At a time when it seems that truths and ideology seems easily distorted and manipulated by those refusing to listen to others or to have substantive meetings of minds, "Freedom of Speech" is an important volume that is refreshing, enlightening and relevant.
June 1, 2015
I really enjoyed this book and listened to the audio version read by the author.
He picks 3 or 4 different areas of recent history where First Amendment issues have arisen: school districts struggling with parental concern over the content of assigned course material, government spying to prevent terrorism and the treatment of whistleblowers who have exposed government deceit, the challenges of truly free political speech for those who don't have money to broadcast their views, and struggles with a Jewish theater in Washington DC who presents material that is at odds with the political mission of supporting organizations.
Shipler does a great job trying to listen to all sides of the story, and treating people who he clearly disagrees with, with respect and dignity. His listening skills and the empathy he feels for everyone is this book is very contagious.
He picks 3 or 4 different areas of recent history where First Amendment issues have arisen: school districts struggling with parental concern over the content of assigned course material, government spying to prevent terrorism and the treatment of whistleblowers who have exposed government deceit, the challenges of truly free political speech for those who don't have money to broadcast their views, and struggles with a Jewish theater in Washington DC who presents material that is at odds with the political mission of supporting organizations.
Shipler does a great job trying to listen to all sides of the story, and treating people who he clearly disagrees with, with respect and dignity. His listening skills and the empathy he feels for everyone is this book is very contagious.
May 27, 2015
I had the pleasure of meeting David K. Shipler as part of the author series at our library. He knows his material very well and was wonderful to listen to him discuss different chapters of the book related to our freedom of speech.
The chapter called "Fear of Reading" was particularly interesting to me as a librarian.
As I said in my introduction to Shipler on the evening he spoke in Louisville, reading this book gave me a heightened appreciation of my freedom to think, to keep thoughts and opinions to myself -- and the power of speaking those thoughts aloud...both for the good and the harm they may do.
Shipler did an admirable job in the book of presenting both sides of a story (when available) and reporting on them without bias of who's right and wrong based on an author's opinion. That was pretty cool of him.
The chapter called "Fear of Reading" was particularly interesting to me as a librarian.
As I said in my introduction to Shipler on the evening he spoke in Louisville, reading this book gave me a heightened appreciation of my freedom to think, to keep thoughts and opinions to myself -- and the power of speaking those thoughts aloud...both for the good and the harm they may do.
Shipler did an admirable job in the book of presenting both sides of a story (when available) and reporting on them without bias of who's right and wrong based on an author's opinion. That was pretty cool of him.
July 4, 2015
Really thoughtful analysis, but sometimes the topics are a bit obscure.
August 3, 2015
Great book recommendations.
Not a bad read if you're unfamiliar with the status on the freedom of speech.
Not a bad read if you're unfamiliar with the status on the freedom of speech.
August 7, 2015
Focused on case studies for specific topics. While interesting individual stories, I was looking for a more legalistic assessment of the topic and so felt the book was a bit disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews