Inventing Freedom

<p>British politician Daniel Hannan's <em>Inventing Freedom</em> is an ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.</p><p>According to Hannan the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms--individual rights private property the rule of law and the institutions of representative government--are the legacy of a very specific tradition that was born in England and that we Americans along with other former British colonies inherited. </p><p>By the tenth century England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights. The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories--the Magna Carta the English Civil War the Glorious Revolution the U.S. Constitution--and how it came to defeat every international rival.</p><p>Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. <em>Inventing Freedom</em> is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.</p>