Creating Freedom: The Lottery of Birth, the Illusion of Consent, and the Fight for Our Future - Hardcover

Martinez, Raoul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670067776 ISBN 13: 9780670067770

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2017

Synopsis

A manifesto for deep and radical change, Creating Freedom explores the limits placed on freedom by human nature and society. It explodes myths at the heart of our economic, political, and criminal justice systems, calling for a profound transformation in the way we think about democracy, equality, and our own identities.    
Free markets, free elections, free media, free thought, free speech, free will--the language of freedom pervades our lives, framing the most urgent issues of our time and the deepest questions about who we are and who we want to be. It is a foundational concept at the heart of our civilization, but it has long been distorted to justify its opposite: soaring inequality, the erosion of democracy, an irrational criminal justice system, and a dehumanizing foreign policy. Raoul Martinez argues that the more we understand the limits on our freedom, the better placed we are to transcend them. Drawing together findings and ideas from neuroscience, criminology, psychology, politics, climate science, economics, and philosophy, Creating Freedom constructs a radical framework to make sense of the world and empower us to change it. This is a wide-ranging analysis of power, control, and freedom, which asks us to question our inherited identity, question our society, and turn the power to choose into the freedom to create.

About this title

About the Author

RAOUL MARTINEZ is a philosopher, artist, and award-winning filmmaker. Creating Freedom is his first book. It is informed by over a decade of research and is accompanied by a documentary series of the same name. Martinez lives and works in London, where his paintings have been selected for exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery.

Review

“Exceptional . . . this year’s essential text for thinking radicals” —The Guardian (UK)

"Creating Freedom is quite magnificent in its intelligence, acuity, scope, human warmth and—most importantly—hope! My book of the year." —Stephen Fry

“In this stunning and lucid book, Raoul Martinez re-assesses our past, re-examines our present, and re-imagines our future. It’s such an exciting and compelling read that you almost don’t notice at first how radical it is. Creating Freedom makes me think that we humans are on the cusp of our next big step—and it’s this kind of thinking that will carry us over.” —Brian Eno

“I’ve been working my way through, highlighter in hand, at times thinking, ‘Just highlight the whole thing.’” —David Byrne

“Provocative, powerful and important, Creating Freedom is a rigorous exploration of what’s gone wrong with our society and how to make it right. A book for our time, this radical manifesto exposes the myths at the heart of our system and shows what the ideal of freedom truly demands from us, individually and collectively.” —Susan Sarandon

"Lucid and bright, Creating Freedom is a light to guide us onwards. Please read it." —Russel Brand
Everyone trying to puzzle through how to deal with the madness of the world—and the forces destroying it—should read this book." —Johann Hari
"Comes the moment; comes the book. A manifesto for real and radical change. This is a brilliant and timely analysis of our political landscape and the ideals which should inform how we reshape the world." —Helena Kennedy QC

"Every now and then you read a book that's so good you want to recommend it to everyone. Creating Freedom: Power, Control and the Fight For Our Future by Raoul Martinez is such a book. It's a clear and convincing plea for freedom and democracy, and against capitalism and inequality, and it really opens your eyes to things that you might have felt, but couldn't yet formulate." —VICE Magazine

“This discussion of the impossibility of ultimate moral responsibility is extremely well written, aphoristic in places, and philosophically right on target.” —Galen Strawson

“An impassioned social and political critique with glimmers of hope for change. British artist and documentarian Martinez makes his literary debut writing on a theme taken up recently by writers such as economists Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz, journalist Bob Herbert, and activist Ralph Nader: inequality, injustice, greed, and entrenched power have undermined democracy and threaten the common good and the future of our planet . . . An intelligent, rigorous manifesto.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Thought-provoking . . . sound and persuasive . . . Eminently readable with an elegance of style not often found in theoretical works. It is no less than a rallying cry to take back the substance rather than the illusions of our freedoms.” —New Internationalist (UK)

"If you believe you are free, think again. Strong arguments . . . epic in scope . . . [A] manifesto to enlighten citizens stuck in an illusion of democracy." —Financial Times
 
"Beautifully written, vigorously argued and remarkably researched . . . No one has examined the issues of freedom and moral responsibility in such an extensive and fascinating context, or done more to show that these issues are not ivory tower debates but absolutely life and death issues for individuals and quite possibly for our species." —Bruce Waller

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0670067776
• ISBN 13: 9780670067770
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 512