Cover image for
Title:
Freedom of speech : mightier than the sword / David K. Shipler.
Author:
Shipler, David K., 1942-
Publication Information:
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

©2015
Call Number:
KF4772 .S53 2015
Abstract:
Focusing on recent free speech controversies across the nation, Shipler maps a rapidly shifting topography of political and cultural norms: parents in Michigan rallying to teachers vilified for their reading lists; conservative ministers risking their churches' tax-exempt status to preach politics from the pulpit; national security reporters using techniques more common in dictatorships to avoid leak prosecution; a Washington, D.C., Jewish theater's struggle for creative control in the face of protests targeting productions critical of Israel; history teachers in Texas quietly bypassing a reactionary curriculum to give students access to unapproved perspectives; the mixed blessings of the Internet as a forum for dialogue about race. Anchored in personal stories -- sometimes shocking, sometimes absurd, sometimes dishearteningly familiar -- Shipler's investigations of the cultural limits on both expression and the willingness to listen build to expose troubling instabilities in the very foundations of our democracy.
Electronic Access:
Cover image 9780307957320.jpg
Edition:
First edition.
ISBN:
9780307957320
Physical Description:
viii, 336 pages ; 25 cm
Contents:
The landscape: Zones of silence, zones of speech -- Books. Trouble in River City ; The discerning audience ; Fear of reading -- Secrets. The loneliness of Thomas Tamm ; Thomas Drake and friends ; The new war correspondents -- Stereotypes. The cultural limits of bigotry ; The Protocols of the Elders of Islam -- Politics. Money is speech, poverty is silence ; True believers -- Plays. Red lines and black lists ; Post-traumatic syndrome of another kind ; The drama behind the drama.
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