Freedom's Dominion

Cowie skillfully traces the instantiation of the concept of "freedom" in the US through the centuries, starting in the early 1800s and the blatant disregard for treaties with different Native American tribes and continuing through the fight against desegregation and to the storming of the capitol in 2021. At its root, this book shows how American freedom is the right of white people to exercise dominance over everyone else. The idea that freedom really means "freedom to dominate" is grotesque, but so neatly explains the political trajectory of the US that it cannot be ignored and has to be dealt with. Beyond that, the brief periods of progress - Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Great Society - show how headway can be made, but were always met with strong rollbacks of those gains. Highly recommend