Timothy Snyder, the historian of eastern Europe, has emerged over the past decade or so as one of America's most trenchant public intellectuals. His incisive criticisms of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin appear more accurate by the day. His latest book is very much a sequel to On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom, the books addressing Trump's America and Putin's Russia respectively, and the new book is a shining example of polemical writing.
A simple argument guides the book: it makes the case for positive freedom over negative freedom. Snyder argues that the latter, freedom from constraints, is not really freedom. The argument may not be an original one but it is important to be making it given current politics. In one of many examples, Snyder points to how birth 'reveals the absurdity' of negative freedom: 'A newborn is not going to become free thanks to the absence of something. You can summon others to a journey toward freedom with a beautiful declaration, but you cannot abandon a baby at the foot of a mountain with a benediction of liberty' (p.52). 'Freedom is positive in the sense that it arises from us; it is positive in the sense that it affirms values; and it is positive in the sense that it informs politics' (p.238). Freedom is an affirmation not a denial, maintains Snyder; it must be thought of in terms of freedom to not freedom from.
Snyder identifies five 'forms' of freedom that help to transition from the principle of freedom to its practice in society – sovereignty (of the person), unpredictability, mobility, factuality and solidarity. These work in unison to foster freedom. It is simplest to quote directly from Snyder's preface to give a flavour of what he means by these: