Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea

by Richard Brookhiser

Overview

An award-winning historian recounts the history of American liberty through the stories of thirteen essential documents


Nationalism is inevitable: It supplies feelings of belonging, identity, and recognition. It binds us to our neighbors and tells us who we are. But increasingly — from the United States to India, from Russia to Burma — nationalism is being invoked for unworthy ends: to disdain minorities or to support despots. As a result, nationalism has become to many a dirty word.


In Give Me Liberty, award-winning historian and biographer Richard Brookhiser offers up a truer and more inspiring story of American nationalism as it has evolved over four hundred years. He examines America's history through thirteen documents that made the United States a new country in a new world: a free country. We are what we are because of them; we stay true to what we are by staying true to them.


Americans have always sought liberty, asked for it, fought for it; every victory has been the fulfillment of old hopes and promises. This is our nationalism, and we should be proud of it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541699137
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,043,782
Product dimensions:	5.85(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and the author of thirteen books, including John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, and James Madison. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Minutes Of The Jamestown General Assembly 9

2 Flushing Remonstrance 29

3 Trial Of John Peter Zenger 49

4 Declaration Of Independence 69

5 Constitution Of The New-York Manumission Society 89

6 Constitution 107

7 Monroe Doctrine 127

8 Seneca Falls Declaration 147

9 Gettysburg Address 167

10 The New Colossus 187

11 Cross Of Gold Speech 205

12 Arsenal Of Democracy Fireside Chat 223

13 Tear Down This Wall Speech 241

Conclusion 257

Acknowledgments 263

Bibliography 265

Notes 269

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

"Smart...As historian, Mr. Brookhiser understands the varied standards and qualities of the American experience and interprets its growth with skill and understanding. And as journalist, he performs a key service: joining the ideals and episodes together, defining the theme that makes the United States exceptional."—Wall Street Journal

"[Brookhiser] writes today with the same assurance, intelligence, clarity and directness that characterized his first cover article for National Review."—Washington Times

"Subtle, economic, and gripping...[An] original reflection on the nature of our American experiment, the work of a man who has for many years immersed himself in the minds of those who forged our freedom."—Michael Knox Beran, National Review

"Brookhiser grounds his spirited argument for American exceptionalism in the idea of liberty...An engaging history of admirable episodes from America's past."—Kirkus

"An elegant and lyrical case for the ideal that has shaped America."—Mona Charen

"A collection of profiles that should ignite the spark of national pride and patriotism. Give Me Liberty is an exceptional study of America's 'exceptional idea.'"—Roanoke Times

"Rather than offering a polemic...Brookhiser uses history to make his case...An important text."—Winston-Salem Journal

"In our deeply divided America, Richard Brookhiser goes back in search of our roots, and finds them in that many-headed idea called 'liberty.' In his signature style, he wastes no words, defies the conventional political categories, and invites us to join him in recovering a series of inspirational moments when we all felt the same future in our hearts and minds."—Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Dialogue: The Founders and Us

"With his characteristic combination of elegance and shrewdness, Richard Brookhiser gives us another insightful account of what makes us the nation we are. Give Me Liberty is intellectual history at its riveting best."—H.W. Brands, author of Heirs of the Founders and Dreams of El Dorado

From the Publisher

2019-09-24
Historian and biographer Brookhiser (John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court, 2018, etc.), senior editor of National Review, grounds his spirited argument for American exceptionalism in the idea of liberty.

"We have been securing it, defining it, recovering it, and fighting for it for four hundred years," writes the author. He chooses 13 public statements, written or orated from 1619 to 1987, which he believes "define America as the country that it is, different from all others." Although acknowledging the nation's "dark chapters" of oppression, brutality, and injustice, Brookhiser focuses on men and women who defiantly fought for liberty, offering lively biographical and historical vignettes that set the stage for each of the documents he examines. These include the minutes of the Jamestown General Assembly, which provided that decision-making in the colony would be by vote; the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657, a statement of grievance sent to Peter Stuyvesant—"a martinet and a bigot"—to insist on religious freedom; the narrative of the trial of John Peter Zenger, which allowed the press in Colonial America to flourish; the Declaration of Independence and, later, the Constitution; the Gettysburg Address; the Monroe Doctrine, which warned "corrupt, oppressive systems" to stay away from America; and the Declaration of Sentiments formulated by suffragists at Seneca Falls. The author also looks at some lesser known protestations for liberty: the constitution devised by the New-York Manumission Society, a group of "oddball Quakers and Manhattan elitists," to confront "the injustice done to those among us who are held as slaves" and help them to share in "civil and religious liberty"; Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus"; William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech; Franklin Roosevelt's 16th fireside chat, of 1940, which underscored America as "the arsenal of democracy"; and Ronald Reagan's exhortation to tear down the Berlin Wall. Without liberty, Brookhiser concludes, we can be nothing but "a bigger Canada or an efficient Mexico."

An engaging history of admirable episodes from America's past.

Kirkus Reviews