CRUSADERS FOR FREEDOM

A noted historian and gifted teacher proves his ability to vitalize and add a striking sense of immediacy to the facts of history in this exciting account of the struggle for freedom in all its forms, both here and abroad. No dry rendering of events, this attacks the meaning of each freedom -- Speech, Religion, the Press, the right to learn, the rights of children, the rights of women, the right of asylum -- and recreates the conditions under which they were won. Thomas Paine's battle for the right to be heard, Eljah Lovejoy's martyrdom for a free press, Roger Williams' and William Penn's fight for a specific religious freedom and Thomas Jefferson's more penetrating struggle for the right itself -- are stories pertinent to our own lives. Though Hans Christian Anderson is often credited with the ""discovery"" of children, a more cynical discovery was made by men who put them to hard labor in mines and factories. The evolution of children's rights is an especially moving chronicle. The struggle for women's rights tells of a more militant fight, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony in the lead. The right of asylum is beautifully demonstrated in the story of Israel's reclamation of the homeless. Drawing from every era, always with his object clearly in view, Henry Steele Commager invites young people to evaluate their precious heritage and motivates them toward further reading and analysis. Immensely rewarding.