Before I’ll Be a Slave

No small projects for Orlando Patterson. Freedom is grand in scope, heartfelt, and refreshingly old fashioned. By that I mean Patterson offers a “grand narrative” of the sort now under sustained attack in many quarters, and the very fact that it is so thoroughly compelling reminds us of what we have lost.

Patterson’s thesis is robust: the West holds and has held the value of freedom as central. Most non-Western cultures thought little of the notion; indeed, many had n...