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You Can't Always Say What You Want

You Can't Always Say What You Want

You Can't Always Say What You Want

The Paradox of Free Speech
Dennis Baron , University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
February 2023
In stock
Hardback
9781009198905
$27.95
USD
Hardback
USD
eBook

    The freedom to think what you want and to say what you think has always generated a pushback of regulation and censorship. This raises the thorny question: to what extent does free speech actually endanger speech protection? This book examines today's calls for speech legislation and places it into historical perspective, using fascinating examples from the past 200 years, to explain the historical context of laws regulating speech. Over time, the freedom to speak has grown, the ways in which we communicate have evolved due to technology, and our ideas about speech protection have been challenged as a result. Now more than ever, we are living in a free speech paradox: powerful speakers weaponize their rights in order to silence those less-powerful speakers who oppose them. By understanding how this situation has developed, we can stand up to these threats to the freedom of speech.

    • Places key present-day concerns about free speech and speech regulation in a historical setting to reveal the ways that the past is prelude to the present
    • A study of the protections and limitations placed on political speech, strong language, threatening words, 'foreign' language, and compelled speech, as well as a look at some current dangers to protecting speech in liberal democracies going forward
    • Explores issues between the First and Second Amendments; the right to free speech and the right to bear arms

    Reviews & endorsements

    'The landscape of free speech is in constant flux, and Baron provides important context to the current debates.' Kirkus Reviews

    ‘… ambitious and timely …' James Rhoades, Library Journal

    See more reviews

    Product details

    February 2023
    Hardback
    9781009198905
    240 pages
    235 × 159 × 20 mm
    0.57kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Free speech, but...
    • 2. Guns and grammar
    • 3. Clear and present danger
    • 4. Strong language
    • 5. Threat level: orange
    • 6. America's war on language
    • 7. Repeat after me
    • 8. Will free speech survive?
      Author
    • Dennis Baron

      Dennis Baron is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a frequent commentator on language issues in the national media and written a number of popular books, including What's Your Pronoun? (2020).

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