On Freedom Paperback – 19 September 2024

I found the book very thoughtful and quite inspiring. Timothy Snyder is obviously a very intelligent and very industrious individual. He makes us reconsider our basic assumptions about individuals and the groups which they form and are formed by. He offers support for a very hopeful future, if we have the fortitude to form it.I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about this country, this planet, and the future we wish to leave for our children.

I have come to know Timothy Snyder through his work as a historian - a role in which he has learnt other languages to access history from other perspectives in order to seek a deeper understanding of the forces that shape our world today.He is an unassailable historian in my view and a public asset.This book is different. He uses a bit of history and some philosophy to reflect on Freedom quite deeply and builds his reflection around a word that I think is one of the most important new words we must get used to using.And that key word is 'Unfreedom'.Because that is essentially where we are and that is what we are experiencing.Stylistically, the book reads as a stream of consciousness punctuated by facts, that is reduced down to some critical conclusions. Ours is a world dominated by what is actually a vision of freedom that is an exclusively reserved for the rich and powerful but is sold to the masses as populist project.Snyder challenges everything, including the Left who supposedly some of us look to for a remedy. His unpicking of the Left's weaknesses are deft and laser-like and need to be heeded - especially how the Left has allowed the Right to monopolize the concept of freedom. But Snyder also sets out how conservative and progressive outlooks can work together that is so obvious you wonder why it has not been picked up before?But what prevents any epiphany? Well, political funding for a start and Snyder expertly unpicks and debunks the latest faulty (but deliberate) thinking that leads to unfreedom - not freedom.'Unfreedom' - get used to that word, because it exists in word and in reality. And it must be opposed. We must do better to recognise it.One day you know, in the future, people or beings seeking to understand what happened to us in these times whilst trying to understand the wreckage could do a lot worse than read any of Tim Snyder's writings. What happened is all there in painstaking detail, put together by one of the most capable witnesses to our age.Highly recommended.

DAs Buch ist deutlich zu persönlich geraten. Snyder reflektiert sein leben angesichts einer schweren - potentiell tödlichen - Erkrankung die er überstanden hat. Dadurch kommt der Inhalt zu kurz. Das enttäuscht Leser:innen die sich ein Pamphlet/Essay über Freiheit erwarten. Aber es ist trotzdem ganz interessant.

Excellent book. Not done reading yet, but so far focuses on definitions of freedom. What impacts freedom? Intellectually challenging. He’s been around and has a broad world view.

Connecting dots to create a big picturePositivityFraming history so the future looks possible to a course changeA excellent-embraces our minds & points to empowerment