The Theme: Freedom Rising

From the dawn of our species until recently, most people lived in poverty and insecurity, and their lives were short. Worse, with the onset of civilization, people were subjected to overlords. Ever since, state organization was tailored to perfecting human exploitation and, for millennia, growing state capacities meant increasing oppression of freedoms (Diamond 1997; Nolan & Lenksi 1999). Indeed, abandoning original freedoms was the very definition of civilization (Elias 1984 [1939]). Only recently did this trend begin to reverse itself. The first signs occurred with the English, Dutch, American, and French revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Grayling 2007). These liberal revolutions brought a game change in history: tyranny, although it continues to exist, is no longer safe; in fact, it is receding at an accelerating pace (Modelski & Gardner 2002).