Suzanne Nossel

A solid defense of free speech from a liberal point of view. Nossel is a member of PEN America and served in the Obama administration. She has a long history of representing people around the world whose rights of self-expression have been violated, and brings her experience to bear in the book. I appreciated the organization of the book into short chapters and sections, the extensive endnotes, and the bullet points of takeaways at the conclusion of each chapter.

Nossel is a super-clear thinker and writer. If her writing were a running stream, you could count the scales on the fish. I was surprised and pleased to find thorough coverage of the myriad responsibilities that accrue to speakers in our society, including the importance of carefully listening before speaking and how to listen properly, the duty to not only include but to amplify marginalized voices and strategies for doing so. The author also argues that simply saying "more speech" or "counterspeech" is the answer to free speech conflicts is insufficient and goes a long way toward illustrating what speech-counterspeech exchanges might be productive and which are likely to be unproductive.

The author includes the history of U. S. jurisprudence around speech, but the parts about the law never become boring or pedantic. A brilliant treatise. I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley and was encouraged to write an honest review.… (altro)