OF HUMAN FREEDOM

A very perspicacious and latitudinarian discussion of freedom and culture in the modern world, by a man of insight and considerable literary and artistic background. Barzun's thesis is that culture must be free if men are to be free: he demonstrates the withering stranglehold that all political absolutes, whether fascist, communist, or revolutionary, bring to bear on branches of civilization. He discusses consecutively the fourfold division of American culture, art, science, government, and education, and shows that there must be elasticity and variety in each, attacking all that is mechanical, formulated, stylized. A humanitarian and humanistic approach -- and stimulating of its kind.