Shipler - Freedom of speech : mightier than the sword

Shipler writes with crisp, concise earnestness.This book is a pleasure to read both for Shiplers skill but also because he tells the stories of people bound up in these issues.

Providence Journal

[Shipler] gets it: The First Amendment is only a starting point. Free expression is a noble ideal that creates continual tension in our society.Shiplers view of Americas free speech landscape is nuanced and complex. Yes, people say awful things, and sometimes seek to squelch expression with which they disagree. But in his book, good ideas and sentiments hold their own against bad and offensive ones.

The Progressive

Chilling.For Shipler, its essential that we find a middle ground where we can hear one another, where we can debate and disagree with respect.We must participate in the conversation about who we are and who we want to be. That it is unruly, disturbing, scary even, goes without saying; this is also why its necessary.

Los Angeles Times

By providing intimate portraits of the lives of those who dare to speak against the odds, Shipler enables us to see the human element behind free expression.Shipler pricks the conscience of readers who refrain from telling the truth, or whose selective listening has lead them to disrespect and delegitimize those with whom they disagree.

National Catholic Reporter

Good stories, great interviews, and a potent plea on behalf of vigilant listening.

Kirkus Reviews

A broad and deep look at free speech.A fascinating look at one of our fundamental rights.

Booklist

David Shipler reminds us in this important book that sometimes we have to listen to things we dont want to hear. But without freedom of speech, there can be no dialogue, and without dialogue, there can be no democracy. Freedom of Speech is a glorious celebration of its own subject!

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

At a time when the First Amendment is under siege as never before in our lifetimes, David Shipler, one of the nations great journalists, reminds us what we are in danger of losing. His terrific, timely new book, Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword, takes us on a toursometimes shocking, often infuriating, always enlighteningof Americas free-speech battlefields.

Philip Shenon, author of A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination

Shipler tells real, often Orwellian stories of ordinary peoplegovernment workers, teachers, librarians, and playwrightswho risk everything to push the free-speech envelope, while challenging us to consider difficult cases when money buys speech and poverty promotes silence. At a time when many civil libertarians despair at the loss of freedom and privacy on so many fronts, Freedom of Speech reveals conflicts that must be understood if free speech is to prevail.

Barbara Jones, former director, American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom

The freedom of speech enjoyed by American citizens is unique in all the world. In this brilliantly insightful and incisive book, David Shipler explores the many and varied facets of our nations complex, extraordinary, and fascinating relationship with our most precious freedom.

Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime

David K. Shipler

Freedom of Speech

David K. Shipler reported for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988 in New York, Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem, and Washington, D.C. He is the author of six previous books, including the bestsellers Russia and The Working Poor, as well as Arab and Jew, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has taught at Princeton, American University, and Dartmouth. He writes online at The Shipler Report.

shiplerreport.blogspot.com

ALSO BY DAVID K. SHIPLER

Rights at Risk:

The Limits of Liberty in Modern America

The Rights of the People:

How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America

Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land

Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, APRIL 2016

Copyright 2015, 2016 by David K. Shipler Living Trust

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2015.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Graham Swift: Excerpts from Waterland, copyright 1983 by Graham Swift. Reprint by permission of Graham Swift.

Caryl Churchill: Excerpts from Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza, copyright 2009 by Caryl Churchill. Reprinted by permission of Caryl Churchill.

Ari Roth and Theater J: Excerpt from the program notes for Andy and the Shadows, 2013. Reprinted by permission of Ari Roth and Theater J.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

Shipler, David K.

Freedom of speech : mightier than the sword / David K. Shipler.

pages cm

1. Freedom of speechUnited States. 2. United States. Constitution.

1st Amendment. I. Title.

KF 4772.s55 2015 323.4430973 DC 23 2014032127

Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN9780307947611

eBook ISBN9781101874691

Author photograph Deborah I. Shipler

Cover design by Chip Kidd

Cover photograph Ann Little / Alamy

www.vintagebooks.com

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FOR THE THREE GENERATIONS:

Debby

Jonathan, Glynis, Laura, Matt, Michael, and Sweta

Madison, Ethan, Benjamin, Kalpana, Dylan, and Priya

Contents

Introduction

The listener is everything in telling a story.

CHAYA ROTH

F reedom of speech implies the freedom to hear. Without willing listeners, brilliant thinkers cannot educate, brave orators cannot mobilize, daring leakers cannot reform. The unseen play, the unread book, the ignored appeal, fall silently away. The unheard lament flutters and fails.