Please note: this event starts at 7.30pm. Doors open at 7pm.
“Americans are told that we were given freedom by our Founding Fathers, our national character, our capitalist economy. None of this is true. Freedom cannot be given. It is not an inheritance… The moment you believe that freedom is given, it is gone.”
After his groundbreaking books On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom, historian Timothy Snyder was asked: “What would a better America look like?” This new book, On Freedom, is his answer. In America and in much of the West, freedom is a much-vaunted ideal. But what is freedom? Snyder argues that the concept’s definition is often negatively formulated: when freedom is invoked, what we often mean is freedom-from: from occupation, oppression, or even government.
That sort of freedom is brittle and incomplete. Snyder posits that true freedom is freedom-to: the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible.
In his powerful account, Snyder puts this concept—the Great American Commitment—to the test. What results is a thrilling intellectual journey: a political philosophy of abundance, generosity and grace that has its roots in experience. Drawing on the work of philosophers and political dissidents, from contemporary thinkers to poets, this is a bold narrative that enables us to imagine and design a government in which we and future generations can flourish.
Program information
Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University. He is a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and co-founder of the Documenting Ukraine initiative. He is the author of twenty books, including On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and Bloodlands. His works have inspired poster campaigns and films, and artistic expressions from sculpture to punk rock, and from rap to opera. His words are quoted in protests around the world. Snyder spoke at the John Adams Institute in 2018.
Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal is a Dutch journalist with Nieuwsuur and former America correspondent for the Dutch Public Broadcaster (NOS). Eelco is a regular moderator at the John Adams, having interviewed some of America’s most consequential figures.
Read, Watch, Listen: Looking for background information in advance of the event? Read Francis Fukuyama’s most recent book Liberalism and Its Discontents (2022); watch Putin & the Presidents (2023); or listen to David Hasselhoff’s “Looking for Freedom”.
This event is made in collaboration with Uitgeverij Balans. Click here to buy the English book with a 10% discount at Athenaeum Boekhandel (use discount code JAI10%).
