THE POWER OF FREEDOM

by Max Ascoli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 24, 1948

Ideas are powerful today. This is a book that will make thoughtful readers reexamine their thinking, as we face a new and adult world. Our system of values is stronger than we know; this book should provide a measure of direction in a world torn by world civil war which might still have a disastrous outcome. The war has upset the fundamental relations of men, introduced new skills. We must examine the causes of disturbance, accept the fact that America, its isolation lost, has found in the Soviet its match. Two leading nations at opposite poles leads to a wide range of differences -- not to political uniformity. If we are to make democracy secure, we must restate world concepts of freedom, study the nature of the rights of man. One vital problem of the age is to establish a correlation between production, in which we excel, and those rights which we have still to prove. We must be through with compromises with industrialism, evasions, fallacies of thinking. The massiveness of economics must be counterbalanced by the multiplicity and elasticity of politics. We must reexamine the meaning of democracy, of popular sovereignty, which becomes an essential element of the dynamism of freedom once it is ballasted by the obligations for the whole people's welfare. The author views the United Nations as the first evidence that politics is acquiring a new dimension. It strength lies- he feels -- in its not being a government, but a clearing house....Not a book that one takes in at first reading, but that persuades one to return to it for more stimulus in the role devolving upon those who believe in democracy and freedom of man. These books need selling if they are to reach the market for which they are designed. This-with the du Nouy and the Koestler -- should provoke plenty of thoughtful study. Important.

Pub Date: Jan. 24, 1948

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1948

Categories: NONFICTION