What Is Free Speech

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

A fresh and exciting approach to one of the most controversial subjects of our time

'Free Speech!' is a clarion call all over the world, yet what it means today is more contested than ever. Many cultures regard it as dangerous: in China, India, and across the Islamic world, unorthodox views about politics, sex, and religion are repressed and people are often punished for expressing them. Even in the west, where it is held up as a core value, there is widespread discord and disagreement about what freedom of expression means. Amidst perennial imbalances of power, continually evolving cultural taboos, dramatic new technologies and a fast-changing global media landscape, where free speech comes from - and how we might think about it - are critical questions.

Through the lens of history, What Is Free Speech? shows us that freedom of speech is not an absolute from which societies and regimes have drifted or dissented at different times, but something more complicated and interesting. This book explains how to think more deeply about free speech as a global as well as a local question - by tracing how we got into our current predicaments, showing that history complicates our contemporary presumptions, and suggesting fresh possibilities for the future.

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9780141988245
Published: March 2026

Number of pages: 480
Width: 130 mm
Height: 198 mm
Depth: 30 mm

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd