Sometime in the eighteenth century, a great transformation took place in the language of liberty. Since the days of the Roman Republic, to be free had meant to be independent of the arbitrary will of another. You enjoyed freedom if nobody could impose their will on you without your prior consent. You were free if you were your own master, and you were unfree to the extent that you answered to anyone else.

This was the concept of liberty which dominated political discourse in England until the outbreak of the American Revolution and Revolutionary War. How it gave way in the wake of the Declaration of Independence to the idea of freedom as absence of restraint — to the concept of negative liberty — is the question that Quentin Skinner, the doyen of intellectual historians in the English-speaking world, attempts to answer. In doing so, he also questions whether the road that was taken was the right one for a democratic society to take. In order to be free, is it enough that we encounter no obstruction on our way, or is something more, and more fundamental, required?

4 Stocks Down Big During Tech Market Sell Off! Buy Now May 2026?