From the acclaimed author of The Fire Is upon Us, the dramatic untold story of Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr.s decade-long clash over the meaning of freedomand how their conflicting visions still divide American politics
In the mid-1950s, Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as the leaders of two diametrically opposed freedom movements that changed the course of American historyand still divide American politics. King mobilized civil rights activists under the banner of freedom now, insisting that true freedom would not be realized until all peopleregardless of racewere empowered politically, economically, and socially. Goldwater rallied conservatives to the cause of extremism in defense of liberty, advocating radical individualism. In One Mans Freedom, Nicholas Buccola tells the compelling story of Goldwater and Kings dramatic decade-long debate over the meaning of an all-important American ideal.
Part dual biography, part history, One Mans Freedom traces the actions and words of Goldwater and King over a crucial and eventful decade, from their dizzying rise through 1964, which ended with Goldwaters landslide defeat in the presidential election and Kings Nobel Peace Prize. The book chronicles why Goldwater and King, who never met in person, came to view each other as perhaps the greatest threat to freedom in America. It explains how their ideas of freedom could be so vastly different, yet both so deeply rooted in American history and their times. And it shows how their disagreement continues to shape and explain politics today, when the bitter divisions between Republicans and Democrats often come down to the question of what kind of freedom Americans wantthe one defined by Goldwater or by King?
