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Start giftingCreating Freedom
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreA manifesto for deep and radical change, Creating Freedom explores the limits placed on freedom by human nature and society. It explodes myths, 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 identities, question our society, and turn the power to choose into the freedom to create.
Raoul Martinez is an artist, writer, and award-winning documentarian whose work has been exhibited in London’s National Portrait Gallery.
Steve West, the winner of multiple Earphones Awards for narration, is an international actor who has starred on London’s prestigious West End stage, including productions of Mamma Mia! and Oh, What a Night! He is widely known for his television and film work in both the United States and the UK, and he has performed for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. He hosts his own television show for the UK live from Los Angeles.
Reviews
“Narrator Steve West grabs this book by the ears and narrates the heck out of it. His silky, deep British-accented voice sets the dark tone for this well-argued work. West guides us through the author’s arguments and pauses enough to make sure that he doesn’t lose us. He also has impeccable timing and pronunciation and uses his voice to create tension in order to keep us listening.”
“Exceptional…This year’s essential text for thinking radicals.”
“If you believe you are free, think again…[A] manifesto to enlighten citizens stuck in an illusion of democracy.”
“Eminently readable…It is no less than a rallying cry to take back the substance rather than the illusions of our freedoms.”
“An impassioned social and political critique with glimmers of hope for change…An intelligent, rigorous manifesto.”
“In this stunning and lucid book, Raoul Martinez reassesses our past, reexamines our present, and reimagines 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.”
“I’ve been working my way through, highlighter in hand, at times thinking, ‘Why bother! Just highlight the whole thing.’ Super impressive.”
“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.”
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