On Freedom

The affirmative sequel to On Tyranny: not what to resist, but what to build. Snyder argues that freedom is not merely the absence of interference but the presence of the conditions that let a person become fully themselves, and that those conditions have to be made, together, on purpose. Written partly in wartime Ukraine, the book reaches for a positive account of liberty at a moment when the negative one feels thin. The case for freedom as something we construct, not just defend.

A historian of Central and Eastern Europe and the twentieth century's catastrophes, whose short books on the present have reached an enormous readership. On Tyranny distills twenty lessons from the century's collapses into a pocket-sized civic handbook. On Freedom, written partly in wartime Ukraine, makes the affirmative case for what freedom is and what sustains it. He writes history as instruction for citizens who would rather not repeat it.