Inventing Freedom

British politician Daniel Hannan's Inventing Freedom is an ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.

According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—are the legacy of a very specific tradition that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited.

By the tenth century, England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights. The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories—the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. Constitution—and how it came to defeat every international rival.

Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. Inventing Freedom is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.

How did this unique tradition of freedom arise, and what will it take to defend it?
The Anglo-Saxon Miracle: Discover the deep roots of freedom in pre-Norman England, where the principles of individual rights and government by consent first took shape.Liberty and Property: Trace the unbreakable link between private property and political freedom, a connection that fueled the rise of the English-speaking peoples.From Magna Carta to the Constitution: Follow the landmark victories for liberty—from the fields of Runnymede to the English Civil War and the halls of Philadelphia—that enshrined our most cherished rights.An Imperiled Inheritance: Understand why the very ideas that built the modern world are now under attack, and what is at stake in the struggle for the future of political freedom.