Freedom of speech is one of the most divisive issues in the world today. Why can we never agree about it, within and across our various cultures? We presume its principles must have been clearly established by great thinkers of the past (Milton! James Madison! George Orwell!), and that it’s only in the present that we’ve lost our way. But in fact that’s not true. What Is Free Speech? is the gripping and unsettling global history of an ideal as cherished as it is misunderstood.