Inventing Freedom Author: Visit Amazon's Daniel Hannan Page | Language: English | ISBN:
006223174X | Format: EPUB
Inventing Freedom Description
Review
“With the eloquence of Macaulay or Trevelyan—both of whom are liberally quoted here—Hannan sweeps us through English history to show the triumph of law-based liberty and “that total understanding which can only exist between people speaking the same tongue.” (The Telegraph (UK))
“Hannan’s well-written book is an excellent politically incorrect history of England.” (Washington Free Beacon)
“Equal parts history and political theory, Inventing Freedom is a thought-provoking and stirring read for the holidays.” (The Blaze)
About the Author
Daniel Hannan is a writer and blogger, and he has been a member of the European Parliament representing South East England for the Conservative Party since 1999. He graduated with a double first in history from Oriel College, Oxford, and worked as a speechwriter and journalist before standing for election. His previous book, The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America, was a New York Times bestseller. He blogs at www.hannan.co.uk.
- Paperback
- Publisher: HarperCollins (December 2, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 006223174X
- ISBN-13: 978-0062231741
- Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Author Daniel Hannan is a person of English ancestry who was born and raised in Peru then relocated to the United Kingdom as an adult and made a career in politics, including becoming one of the U.K.'s representatives to the European Parliament. His global experience has shown him how unique is our "Anglosphere" heritage of representative democracy, protection of property rights, the sanctity of law, and the inalienable rights of the individual.
These values are imbedded so deeply in our culture that they have become part of our subconscious. Because we take them for granted, we often forget to value them as being the foundation of our liberty and prosperity.
I've also lived and worked around the world and have also come to a similar appreciation. English-derived culture and law IS unique in its protection of individual liberty and property rights. The Napoleonic-derived law that governs Continental Europe and its former Latin American Colonies assumes that in criminal matters the accused is guilty until proven innocent. It assumes that individuals have no natural rights to liberty, but are only licensed certain rights by the state. As a result, human rights and property rights are severely constrained.
For example, Latin America, which inherited Spanish and Portuguese law, does not permit individual ownership of subsurface mineral rights such as oil or gold. ALL subsurface wealth belongs to the state. These countries do not have independent judiciaries that are empowered to invalidate unconstitutional edicts of the government. Any judge in Latin America who rules against the wishes of the government risks being deposed and imprisoned. Most of these countries have not amounted to much either in terms of freedom or prosperity.
In the last few years, Daniel Hannan has been recognized all over the English-speaking world as one of the most eloquent voices for freedom. In 2010 he implored Americans to reject European-style social democracy in The New Road to Serfdom, and now in "Inventing Freedom" Hannan provides a history of English-speaking liberty and shows how it was instrumental in creating the world we live in today.
Hannan lists regular elections, habeas corpus, free contract, equality before the law, open markets, freedom of press and religion, and jury trials as the freedoms that have flourished in the English-speaking world and shows how those freedoms have been responsible for the stupendous prosperity of the previous couple of centuries. He also describes how even the English language promotes freedom, how a Protestant political culture has survived in Anglosphere countries that have seen a decline in religious observance, and how the capitalist system traduced by many is in fact the most moral economic system ever devised.
While many think that Anglo-Saxon liberties are traceable to the Magna Carta, Hannan traces these freedoms all the way back to tenth-century England and reveals why liberty originally flourished there instead of on the Continent. The book recalls how the Norman invasion of 1066 was a terrible setback, but that the Magna Carta of 1215, Glorious Revolution of 1688, and U.S. Constitution of 1787 were restorations of freedoms and liberties English-speakers had known before 1066.
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