Two leading thinkers present alternative answers to one of the most difficult and divisive
questions of our times: Is free speech under threat? Suzanne Nossel CEO of PEN America the
leading free expression organisation argues that alongside the necessary and long-overdue
elevation of minority voices in recent years there has also arisen an uncompromising
intolerance - most notably on university campuses and online - that wrongly equates a wide
range of offensive speech with violence and seeks to shut it down. This has led to an
escalating free speech arms race from which everyone loses. Charlotte Lydia Riley historian
of empire and editor of The Free Speech Wars argues that accusations of cancel culture and
defences of free speech are too often disingenuous attempts to fuel a culture war and so
inhibit an important realignment in which hateful speech is at last being called out for what
it is and the right to free expression is being extended to more people than ever before.
Published in conjunction with Intelligence Squared the world's leading curator of debate this
book is part of the THINK AGAIN series: short books that present two expert contrasting but
equally persuasive views in a single volume that can be read from either end.
