Podcasts by Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.
Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s website at freespeechhistory.com
Further podcasts by Jacob Mchangama
Podcast on the topic Geschichte
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Episode 41 - Free Speech and Racial Justice: Friends or Foes? from 2020-08-21T08:22:58
In May 2020, protests erupted all over the U.S. after a video emerged of a white police officer killing a black man named George Floyd. Millions took to the stree...
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Special Edition - Suzanne Nossel from 2020-07-31T08:14:55
In this Special Edition, we will zoom in on current challenges to free speech – specifically in the US. With me to discuss this timely subject, I have CEO of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, who ha...
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Special Edition - Daphne Keller&Kate Klonick from 2020-05-14T12:17:20
“Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal,” declared the headline of a Listen
Special Edition - Dunja Mijatović from 2020-05-04T13:41:23
Since the coronavirus became a pandemic, governments around the world have adopted a wide range of measures affecting basic human rights. This includes many of the 47 member states of the Counci...
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Special Edition - Monika Bickert from 2020-04-17T09:32:52
The coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it. Billions of people across the world are caught in varying degrees of lockdowns with severe restrictions on their free...
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Episode 40 - The Age of Human Rights: Tragedy and Triumph from 2020-02-04T03:28:45
In 2014, Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam by promoting secular values on his blog Free S...
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Episode 39 - The Totalitarian Temptation – Part II - Der Untergang from 2020-01-27T14:31:32
In November 2019 German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a passionate speech to the German Bundestag. Merkel said “We hav...
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Episode 38 - The Totalitarian Temptation – Part I from 2020-01-15T08:59:16
In George Orwell’s 1946 work, “The Prevention of Literature,” he wrote:
[O]rganised lying … is … integral to totalit...
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Episode 37 - Expert opinion: The History of Mass Surveillance, with Andreas Marklund from 2019-12-30T11:21:24
In 2013 the NSA contractor Edward Snowden sent shockwaves through the American government when he leaked information exposing a number of vast mass surveillance programs providing the US Governm...
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Episode 36 - Expert opinion: Thomas Healy on how Oliver Wendell Holmes changed the history of free speech in America from 2019-12-19T11:57:54
On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson, the newly elected president, gave his first inaugural address. Jefferson eloquently dismissed the logic behind the Sedition Ac...
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Episode 35 - White Man´s Burden: Empire, Liberalism and Censorship from 2019-12-02T15:00
During the mass protests that have rocked Hong Kong since June 2019 pro-democracy protestors have waved Union Jack flags and been singing God Save the Queen. A cl...
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Episode 34 – The Age of Reaction: The fall and rise of free speech in 19th century Europe from 2019-11-21T10:22:55
The 18th century ended with free speech in full retreat. With the French Revolution, the call for “Enlightenment Now!” was no longer seen as the harbinger of humanity’s inevitable march toward p...
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Special Edition - A conversation with Professor David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur from 2019-10-28T12:21:23
In this special edition of Clear And Present Danger we leave the past and jump into the present for a discussion on how international human rights standards are releva...
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Episode 33 - Counter-Revolution: Dutch Patriots, Tom Paine´s Rights of Man and the campaign against Seditious Writings from 2019-10-18T14:14:57
Faced with bloody terrorism democratic Europe has often reacted with tough measures. The UK Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 criminalizes express...
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Episode 32 - Policing opinion in the French Revolution with Charles Walton from 2019-09-28T07:27:08
On Aug. 26, 1789, France’s National Assembly adopted the <...
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Episode 31 - The Old Regime from 2019-09-12T07:47:15
In Nov. 2018, French President Emanuel Macron declared war on “offensive and hateful content” on the internet. Subsequently, France adopted strict laws against bo...
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Episode 30 - Northern Lights, The Scandinavian Press Freedom Breakthrough from 2019-08-23T05:00
In the 1760s and 1770s, Sweden and Denmark-Norway shortly became the epicenter of press freedom protections in Enlightenment Europe.
In 1766, the Swedish Diet passed the Press Freedom Ac...
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Episode 29 - The Philosopher King - Enlightened Despotism, part 2, Prussia from 2019-08-02T17:16:14
In his famous essay “What is Enlightenment?” the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant declared: “[E]nlightenment requires nothing but freedom … to make public use of one...
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Episode 28 - Writing on Human Skin - Enlightened Despotism, part I, Russia from 2019-07-12T05:00
The Enlightenment´s emphasis on science, progress, tolerance and rationality not only attracted philosophers. Even absolute monarchs dreamt of “Enlightenment Now....
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Episode 27 - How Enlightening from 2019-06-21T06:48:25
data-contrast="auto">After a brief detour into the present, we return to Ground Zero of the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe, with this recap of past ep...
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Episode 26 – Oslo Freedom Forum Special with Megha Rajagopalan and Yuan Yang from 2019-06-04T10:45:27
June 4th, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the bloody culmination of the Chinese government´s Tiananmen Massacre of pro-democracy students and activists. But al...
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Episode 25 – Oslo Freedom Forum Special with Larry Diamond from 2019-05-28T19:25:16
Today´s episode is going to be a radical departure from the chronological timeline of the general podcast so far. I´m currently in Oslo for the annual Oslo Freedo...
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Episode 24 – Expert Opinion: Stephen Solomon part two - The Sedition Act from 2019-05-10T07:30:21
In 1787, the newly authored U.S. Constitution was sent out to the states for ratification. Despite fierce objections from Anti-Federalists, the Constitution did not include a bill of rights prot...
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Episode 23 – Expert Opinion: Stephen Solomon part one - The First Amendment from 2019-04-17T10:47:04
The First Amendment of the US Constitution was adopted as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791. This “Great bulwark of liberty” provides that
“Congress shall make no law respecting an esta...
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Episode 22 - Fighting Words - Free Speech in 18th Century America, Part II from 2019-03-08T08:53:16
In the second half of the 18th Century American, Patriots showed that freedom of the press was a potent weapon against authority. Not even the world´s most formidable empire could stop them from...
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Episode 21 - The Bulwark of Liberty - Free Speech in 18th Century America, Part I from 2019-02-14T08:49:21
18th century America was impacted and influenced by the so-called Glorious Revolution in the Motherland. And no-one had a bigger impact on American attitudes towards freedom of speech than Cato’...
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Episode 20 - The Seeds of Enlightenment from 2019-01-25T10:05:44
1685 was a watershed year for events that would lead to what we call the Enlightenment. France´s Sun King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and initiated a policy of religious persecution of...
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Episode 19 – Expert Opinion: Steven Nadler on Spinoza’s ‘book forged in hell” and the right to “think what you like and say what you think” from 2019-01-03T09:20:13
Baruch Spinoza (also known as Benedict de Spinoza) was born in Amsterdam in 1632. While his given name means “blessing” in both Hebrew and Latin, Spinoza’s “Th...
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Episode 18 - Colonial Dissent: Blasphemy, Libel and Tolerance in 17th Century America from 2018-12-14T10:00:02
Americans are more supportive of free speech than any other people. 95 % of Americans think it’s “very important” to be able to criticize the government without censorship and 77% support the ri...
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Episode 17 - Global Inquisition from 2018-11-17T09:12:18
In the 16th Century Spain and Portugal globalized the inquisition by spreading the fight for religious orthodoxy and against heresy, blasphemy and apostasy to the Americas, Africa and Asia allow...
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Episode 16: Expert Opinion - Michael Shermer from 2018-11-02T09:01:47
In this episode, we join up with historian of science Dr. Michael Shermer to investigate the cross-fertilization between science and free speech.
Michael Shermer is a prolific writer on s...
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Episode 15 - Paper-bullets and the forgotten martyrs of radical free speech from 2018-10-11T10:12:08
Episode 15 returns to Europe and formative events in 17th Century England, where a...
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Episode 14 - ‘Universal Peace’: Religious tolerance in the Mughal empire from 2018-09-20T07:59:25
Episode 14 leaves the West and heads to 16th and 17th Century India and the Mughal empire. In particular, the rule of Akbar the Great.
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Episode 13: Expert Opinion - Jonathan Haidt from 2018-09-06T08:18:02
In this episode, we do a bit of time travel and leave the 17th century for a discussion of free speech on American college and university campuses today.
Our guest is New York University ...
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Episode 12: Expert Opinion - Teresa Bejan from 2018-08-23T09:13:53
We enter the early modern age with an expert opinion featuring Teresa Bejan, associate professor at Oriel College, Oxford University and author of “Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of ...
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Episode 11: The great disruption - Part II from 2018-08-09T08:57:21
In episode 11 we continue to survey the wreckage after hurricane Luther was unleashed on Europe with the Reformation. When the Reformation mutated and spread across the continent a burning quest...
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Episode 10: The great disruption - Part I, the printing press and the viral Reformation from 2018-06-14T07:32:36
The disruptive effects of the internet and social media on the spread of information are unprecedented. Or are they?
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Episode 9: Expert Opinion - Christine Caldwell Ames from 2018-05-24T08:04:23
Our last stop in the Middle Ages is an interview with professor Christine Caldwell Ames, who is an expert on medieval heresy and inquisition in Judaism, Christian...
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Episode 8: The hounds of God - medieval heretics and inquisitors from 2018-05-17T08:12:30
From the High Middle Ages, Europe developed into a “persecuting society,” obsessed with stamping out the “cancer” of heresy. But questions about how this was accomplished — and the consequences ...
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Episode 7: Expert Opinion - Peter Adamson from 2018-04-26T07:26:14
In our second expert opinion episode, Jacob Mchangama talks with Peter Adamson, who is a professor of philosophy at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and host of the podcast “Listen
Episode 6: The not-so-Dark Ages, medieval intellectuals, and freethinkers from 2018-04-05T08:31:12
In episode 6, we get medieval!
Find out why the Middle Ages were as much a period of reason and inquiry as inquisition and superstition.
Why was the famous medieval intellectual Pi...
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Episode 5: The Caliphate from 2018-03-22T08:27:04
Why did the medieval Abbasid Caliphs have almost all ancient Greek works of philosophy and science translated into Arabic? How did the long list of medieval Muslim polymaths reconcile abstract r...
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Episode 4: Expert Opinion - Paul Cartledge from 2018-03-08T08:55:14
In our first expert opinion segment, Jacob Mchangama talks to Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University Listen
Episode 3: The Age of Persecution from 2018-03-01T08:32:23
Why did the polytheist Ancient Romans persecute the followers of the new Jewish sect of “Christians” in the first three centuries AD”? How high was the price that Christians had to pay for casti...
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Episode 2: Liberty or License - Free Speech in Ancient Rome from 2018-02-15T08:25:07
Rome was the most powerful empire in antiquity. But were the Romans free to speak truth to power? Did history’s first successful Women’s March take place in Rome? And who came out on top when th...
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Episode 1: Who wishes to speak? - Free Speech in Ancient Athens from 2018-02-01T08:27:52
The democracy of Ancient Athens was the birthplace of equal and uninhibited speech. Or Isegoria and parrhesia to the Athenians. Jacob Mchangama guides you through how oratory was central to the ...
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Episode 0: Why free speech? from 2018-01-24T20:04:17
Only 13% of the world’s 7,4 billion people enjoy free speech. 45% live in countries where censorship is the norm. Still, more than half the world’s population across cultures and continents thin...
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