Trouble with Freedom

Melissa Butcher is Education Programme Director at the social enterprise Cumberland Lodge and Professor Emeritus of Social and Cultural Geography at Birkbeck, University of London. A former journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, she is the author of two books, five edited collections and numerous pieces of journalism and travelogues.

‘Freedom to be all that you can be – or freedom for others to hurt you at will? Butcher’s book gets to the heart of the American drama defining our age.’Peter Pomerantsev, author of How to Win an Information War‘A deeply researched, fair-minded and bracing book. Melissa Butcher offers a window into how Americans define “freedom” in wildly different ways. In doing so, she reveals the popular appeal of the MAGA movement and examines the ideas that are at the core of its most indefatigable critics.’Matthew Dallek, author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right‘In this perceptive travelogue, Melissa Butcher joins a storied tradition kickstarted by the likes of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont. After travelling the nation and interviewing hundreds of people across the political spectrum, Butcher offers keen insights into American political culture and its obsession with freedom. The takeaway: the United States is descending into civil war levels of polarisation in the abstract, but at a granular level, Americans have more in common than they think – and all hope is not lost.’Andrew Hartman, author of Karl Marx in America

• 1 All change2 Defending freedom, saving America3 Re-Imagining free movement: El Paso/Ciudad Juarez4 ‘Power and control, baby’: stories of (un)freedom and (in)justice5 Let’s hear it for the girl6 Teaching freedom: the (mis-)education of America7 The many incarnations of Jesus Christ’s love8 How to become a libertarian: ‘don’t hit other people, don’t take their stuff and keep your promises’9 The enchantments of medical freedom and future dystopias10 ‘It all turns on affection’: family, freedom and the land11 ‘Figuring out’ the future, writing new freedomsIndex