Freedom: Volume I: Freedom In The Making Of Western Culture
Freedom: Volume I: Freedom In The Making Of Western Culture
Freedom: Volume I: Freedom In The Making Of Western Culture
byOrlando Patterson
This magisterial work traces the history of our most cherished value. Patterson links the birth of freedom in primitive societies with the institution of slavery, and traces the evolution of three forms of freedom in the West from antiquity through the Middle Ages.
Argues that the concept of personal freedom developed as it did only in the Western world because of the role of women, along with slaves and foreigners, as outsiders, but that the Christian concept of spiritual freedom led to the justification of social hierarchies
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
How did freedom--personal, civic and political--become such a powerful value in the Western world? According to this groundbreaking study, the interaction among masters, slaves, serfs and native nonslaves in ancient times gave rise to both the concept of freedom and a commitment to it. Harvard sociology professor Patterson argues that male, small-time farmers, through their relations with large-scale, slaveholding counterparts, gave birth to civic freedom as a value. He further contends that it was women who invented the ideal of personal freedom, which was closely linked to justice, and being true to oneself and to "significant others." Challenging conventional readings of the so-called Dark Ages, Patterson holds that chords of freedom resounded through the medieval period. First half of a projected two-volume opus, this intellectually rich work redefines a whole field of inquiry as it ranges over Greek tragedy and philosophy, Roman history, the emergence of Christianity, and medieval secular and religious thought.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Patterson, a Harvard sociologist, argues that the idea of freedom is the supreme value in the Western world and increasingly so in the rest of the world. This book, the first of a projected two-volume inquiry, seeks to answer the question of how it became such a powerful and popular value. His basic thesis is that freedom as a value derived from the experience of slavery in the ancient world. He then traces the fate of the idea of freedom in the Roman empire, during the rise of Christianity, and in the Middle Ages. He further distinguishes between personal, sovereign, and civic freedom and analyzes the potential evils in each of these freedoms; e.g., personal liberty has led to unbridled capitalism, sovereign freedom to dictatorship, and civic freedom to the oppression of minorities. This is a scholarly treatise, but given the importance of the subject, it is highly recommended for public as well as academic libraries.
- Jeffrey R. Herold, Bucyrus P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product details
Hardcover: 487 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (July 17, 1991)
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S. Pactor
4.0 out of 5 stars From Slavery... Freedom
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2005
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Patterson, a Harvard Professor who made his bones writing about slavery in the New World, turns his focus to the roots of the "value complex" we Americans call "freedom". Although this is volume one of a two volume set, the author himself refers to the second volume as a "footnote" in the history of freedom.
Patterson discusses four different time periods and their impact on the development of freedom. First, the Greeks, next, the Romans, third, Christianity and fourth The Middle Ages.
Cabining his discussion of all four time periods are two guiding precepts. FIrst, that western freedom consists of three constituent elements which combine to make Western freedom "chordal". The elements are sovereignal, civic and personal freedom. Patterson goes to great length to demonstrate that while modern thinkers (post enlightenement) equate "freedom" with personal and civic freedom, the type of freedom most people were familiar with back in the day was, in fact, "sovereignal" freedom, which can be described as "freedom through absolute devotion to a god/king/emperor/leader" through which the followers remain free.
The second main insight is that a "slave society" is a pre condition for the development of freedom. In other words, freedom developed from the yearnings of slaves to escape bondage. In that way, freedom, the west's greatest achievment is bound up in the unspeakable evil of slavery. I found that particular insight illuminating.
Worthy of a read, although it takes a while to muddle through. Patterson is fond of both the academic "we" and citing extensively from specialist scholars. On the whole a worthwhile investment of time. Extensively footnoted for follow up reading
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Joseph L. Bast
4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and inspiring work from an unlikely source.
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 1998
Who would have thought that a Marxist sociologist at Harvard could write a profoundly moving account of the history of freedom? Patterson delivers a highly readable account of the "three chords of freedom" as they evolved in the ancient world, were crushed during the Roman empire, and were reborn and spread worldwide by history's first freedom-centered religion, Christianity. The book has just two small flaws: the author's frequent references to rusty Marxist notions of class struggle, and the sketchy and incomplete character of the final chapters and conclusion. Still, it is a marvelous read. I for once can hardly wait for volume 2, expected in 1999.
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Vikram Peters
1.0 out of 5 stars Is he contradicting himself?
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 1999
I was especially taken by Patterson's book on the sociology of Slavery. However, in this book he appears to contradict himself. Maybe. In his 1982 book Patterson tendered that Greek polis and Roman slavery ought not to be confused with modern, capitalistic notions of freedom. If freedom was yearned for by slaves and freedom indeed was a virtue aspired to particulary by women and slaves, then, what of the paranome and operae obligations, reciprocal obligatons that was part and parcel of first century Mediterranean societies. Indeed Peter Garnsey and Richard Saller have admitted that even while the Romans may have given their slaves citizenship along with their freedom, this act was always undergirded in the interests of the owner. The slave had to work out his obligations. Why does not Patterson talk about these obligations, a social-anthropological reality? Or, is Berlin right in stating that freedom as we know it is a modern phenomena, something that Patterson himself observed in 1982, Slavery and Social Death?
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Paul M. Neville
5.0 out of 5 stars Life Altering Book
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2002
This book literally changed my life. I stumbled on it at a [local bookstore] (sorry Amazon). Through this Marxist scholar I learned pride in the accomplishments of my culture i. e. Western Civilization.
While his Marxist training sometimes peeks through, in asides, it never interferes in his central theme which ultimately destroys the foundations of Marxist thought and propaganda.
His skill is in weaving facts about the West, we all know but have displaced because of left wing historical revision, into a compelling and coherent pagent about the "invention" of freedom.
This Marxist turned me into a proud conservative.
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