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The essays in this volume portray the public debates concerning freedom of speech in the 18th century in France and Britain as well as Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Spain and its American territories. The economic integration of Europe and its offshoots over the past three centuries into a distinctive cultural product, "the West," has given rise to a triumphant universalist narrative that masks these disparate national contributions to freedom of speech and other liberal rights.
List of contents
1 Introduction: Freedom of Speech: Contemporary Issues and a History 2 Libertas Philosphandi in the Eighteenth Century: Radical Enlightenment versus Moderate Enlightenment (1750-1776) 3 In Praise of Moderate Enlightenment: A Taxonomy of Arguments in Favor of Freedom of Expression 4 Cynicism as an Ideology Behind Freedom of Expression in Denmark-Norway 5 Alexander Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow and the Limits of Freedom of Speech in the Reign of Catherine the Great 6 Print versus Speech: Censoring the Stage in Eighteenth-Century Vienna 7 The Crisis of the Hispanic World: Tolerance and the Limits of Freedom of Expression in a Catholic Society 8 Rousseau, Constant, and the Emergence of the Modern Notion of Free Speech 9 Toward an Archaeology of the First Amendment's Free Speech Protections 10 Conclusion: A Way Forward?
About the author
Elizabeth Powers was chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Eighteenth-Century European Culture from 2003 to 2010. She is a scholar of German literature and is currently writing a study of Goethe's concept of world literature.
