"...this work attempts to answer four questions. First, how and why was freedom initially constructed as a social value? Second, how and why, after having been invented, did it emerge as the supreme value distinct from any number of other important values? Third, why did this rise to cultural supremacy happen only in the Western World, and for so many centuries remain confined to this civilization? Finally, having achieved preeminence, what forces maintained its status as the core value of Western civilization throughout the course of its history?' p. xi

"Freedom, like love and beauty, is one of those values better experienced than defined." p. 2

"Freedom, I will show, is a tripartite value. Behind the term's numerous shades of meaning are three ideas, closely related historically, sociologically, and conceptually, which may be called personal, sovereignal, and civic freedoms. The musical metaphor of a chordal triad is very...