Herbert Joseph Muller

Herbert J. Muller examines the meaning of freedom in the great civilizations of the past including the Sumerian, Egyptian, Minoan, Assyrian, Persian, Phoenician, Greek, Roman and early Christian. Ranging from the attempts of the cave man to free himself from the tyranny of nature through magic and ritual, to the religious despotism of Byzantium, the author surveys freedom's gains and triumps, its losses and failures. In doing so, he provides the reader with new insight into the meaning and destiny of freedom in Western Civilization.

Lectures sponsored by the Frank L. Weil Institute for Studies in Religion and the Humanities.

Biocritical study of the writer.

Muller follows the evolution of the concept of freedom from neolithic times through the Minoans, Persians Phoenicians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans to the early Christian break with the classical world.

After discussing the forces that led inexorably to WWI and its aftermath, most tragically manifested in the rise of totalitarianism, the author moves on to analyze the impact of Western thought on the non-Western world. He concludes among other things, that in no society has the freedom to choose and to act on one's choice guaranteed that the choice will be the right one. He concentrates on those major developments which have affected our civilization in its entirety. The Industrial Revolution, the rise of capitalism, the movements toward popular government, socialism and nationalism are considered as they interacted with the revolutions in science, literature, the arts and education. In the same way, the diffuse Romantic Movement, the rise of popular culture, the unprecedented advances in physics, medicine and the social sciences are examined in the context of simultaneous political and economic ferment.