Freedom of Speech The History of an Idea

by Powers, Elizabeth; Eijnatten, Joris van; Sebastián, Javier Fernández; Fichtner, Paula Sutter; Israel, Jonathan I.; Laursen, John Christian; Morrissey, Lee; Rosenblatt, Helena; Smith, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9781611483857
• ISBN10: 1611483859
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-10
• Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Summary

The essays in this volume portray the debates concerning freedom of speech in eighteenth-century France and Britain as well as in Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Spain and its American territories. Representing the views of both moderate and radical eighteenth-century thinkers, these essays by eminent scholars discover that twenty-fi rst-century controversies regarding the extent of permissible speech have their origins in the eighteenth century. 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 Enlightenment narrative of universalism and tolerance that masks these divisions and the disparate national contributions to freedom of speech and other liberal rights.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Freedom of Speech: Contemporary Issues and a History	p. ix
Libertas Philosphandi in the Eighteenth Century: Radical Enlightenment versus Moderate Enlightenment (1750-1776)	p. 1
In Praise of Moderate Enlightenment: A Taxonomy of Early Modern Arguments in Favor of Freedom of Expression	p. 19
Cynicism as an Ideology behind Freedom of Expression in Denmark-Norway	p. 45
Alexander Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow and the Limits of Freedom of Speech in the Reign of Catherine the Great	p. 61
Print versus Speech: Censoring the Stage in Eighteenth-Century Vienna	p. 81
The Crisis of the Hispanic World: Tolerance and the Limits of Freedom of Expression in a Catholic Society	p. 103
Rousseau, Constant, and the Emergence of the Modern Notion of Freedom of Speech	p. 133
Toward an Archaeology of the First Amendment's Free Speech Protections	p. 165
Conclusion: A Way Forward?	p. 191
Appendices: Milestones in the History of Freedom of Speech	p. 199
The Netherlands and Britain
Northern Europe, Habsburg Lands, and Russian Empire
Spain
Bibliography	p. 215
Notes on Contributors	p. 221
Index	p. 223
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