What is "freedom"? What does it mean to be "free"? The answer hasn't always been the same.
Freedom is a lofty ideal celebrated by poets, artists and philosophers, but it’s also an formidable ideological weapon. There are countless examples of freedom being invoked to achieve political ends for good and evil.
In her book, Annelien de Dijn describes modern freedom as "the equating of liberty with restraints on state power."
What does freedom mean to you? Whose freedom matters?
De Dijn writes that antidemocratic backlash following the Atlantic Revolutions was a catalyst for this form of freedom. How did freedom take its form? How does our understanding of modern freedom differ from historic freedoms?
Guest: Annelien de Dijn, professor of History at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and author of "Freedom: An Unruly History"
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*This interview was recorded on Monday, January 25.