FREEDOM IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

by Samuel Eliot Morison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 16, 1956

The versatile Prof. Morison here explores the state of various freedoms, among them political, civic and scholastic, according to the standards of Western society. He reviews the sources of concepts of freedom, as they emerged everywhere, from Saul of Tarsus' struggle with Roman fiat to the principle of natural rights enunciated in Sophocles' Antigone. The approach is not historical nor remotely legalistic. Morison comes to grips with the suppressions caused by fear of Communism, the effects of the Attorney General's woeful list, of McCarthyism as a form of official demagoguery. He writes cogently of the much-neglected question of fair trade laws and the inner contradiction in a capitalist society which safeguards the livelihood and economic opportunity of the ""little man"" while restricting the competitive spirit of free enterprise. The most emotional pages deal with the fitness of teachers to teach, and their presumed right to choose material and present it to students in the light of their own best judgment. If the USA remains uppermost, a welcome section takes up the laws and precepts of freedom which prevail in Canada. An academic piece with tangents of wider social interest.

Pub Date: Oct. 16, 1956

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown-AMP

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1956

Categories: NONFICTION