In this comprehensive survey of the role of freedom of speech and religion in democratic societies, Murray Dry demonstrates the harmony of the relationship between respecting the opinions of others and maintaining civil peace. Dry submits that, all too often, discussions of speech and religion within the context of constitutional law fail to consider the rich history of political (and religious) thinking about civic freedoms, from the ancient thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides) to the early and later moderns (Bacon, Hobbes, Milton, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, and Mill). After a varied and enlightening discussion of the multiplicity of views animating the American founding, from the Puritans to the generation of Jefferson and Madison, Dry constructs a superb survey of the history of political thought regarding the extent to which civil societies should allow citizens the freedom to express views, political and religious, and the freedom to exercise religion. As will come as no surprise, Dry concludes that the ancients, while advocating some space for political speech, did not believe it a good idea to allow democratic peoples the broad freedom to express views that we find in modern political thought. The moderns, by contrast, viewed the freedoms of speech and religion as a path to the protection of rights and the securing of justice as well as a method of obtaining truth. Drawing upon Mill's famous discussion, Dry asserts that the modern perspective rightly understands the difference between “received opinion” and “living truth,” and it is only through civil society's allowing “the fullest expression of counter arguments” that it will begin to value meaningful truth (136). Furthermore, the ancients had no conception of freedom of religion, despite holding the view that religion was a critical element for the proper functioning of society. Dry correctly cedes that the moderns carved out a much less public role for religion than the ancients, thus making the political consequences of religious difference less severe and civic peace a greater possibility. He elevates Montesquieu as an example of this modern move, revealing Montesquieu's claim that morality, especially public morality, can be maintained “without true religion, or perhaps without religion at all” (128).

After concluding the engaging survey of ancients and moderns on freedom of religion and speech, Dry then possesses the proper philosophical framework for elucidating the history of American Supreme Court jurisprudence on speech and religion. Periodically pointing to the debt the justices owed modern political thinkers, Dry traces the development of Supreme Court doctrine in the arenas of speech and religion, dividing the latter into the traditional categories of establishment and free exercise.

This book is tremendously valuable for one reason: it does an excellent job of taking essentially late modern concerns (freedom of speech and religion in the context of constitutional democracy) and authentically disinterring the manner in which ancients, early moderns, later moderns, and American founders understood the issues. Dry masterfully offers brief exegeses of complex texts to reveal how thinkers viewed freedom of speech and religion, when those concerns are not usually central foci of the texts. If you want a solid account of what Aristotle thought about freedom of speech, look no further than Dry's reading. The same is true for each of the other thinkers addressed. It is certainly possible to challenge this or that detail, as I found myself doing while reading the book, but Dry's larger picture for each thinker is compelling.

That being said, Dry could have done more to draw a thread between the various eras of thinking, demonstrating not only that there is a difference between the visions, but expanding clearly and precisely on the nature and reasoning behind the differences between the ancients and moderns. A more detailed account would surely have complicated Dry's seeming advocacy of the classically liberal conception of freedom of speech and religion that emerges most readily in his discussion of Supreme Court jurisprudence, and explicitly in his conclusion. More attention to the precise differences between Plato and Locke, for instance, should have spotlighted the question of religion's public role in democratic societies. Can we simply affirm Locke's later understanding of religion as a private, voluntary matter, and dismiss Plato's contention that public discourse about religion is vital for the wellbeing of Athens? It may be that we affirm Locke and dismiss Plato, but we cannot do so simply or without taking away from the analysis the residual tension between the privatization of religion and the deeply felt need for people, and perhaps especially democratic people, to have religious beliefs that mean something significant for the public realm. Moreover, the force of Dry's large thesis would be enhanced, and a bit more coherent, had he more diligently attended to the challenges that the ancients pose for the moderns on the issues of speech and religion. It is clear from Dry's analysis of Supreme Court doctrine that when the ideas of the moderns are actually applied to real democratic peoples and societies, the clarity of those ideas is clouded and that the engagement of the idea of religious and political freedom with religious and political people is not without tension. The ancients illumined this tension. More attention not only to their contribution to the discussion, but to the manner in which their positions challenge those of the moderns would have explained the complexity that Dry rightly sees in Supreme Court jurisprudence. As it is, the book gives the impression that the ancients had rudimentary visions of freedom of speech and religion, because they had not fully embraced the liberal vision of modernity. And when we do embrace the liberal and democratic vision of modernity, the ancients are to be viewed as merely less developed precursors, and not a serious normative challenge to the modern vision. But the complexity of these issues, which should have emerged in a more comprehensive comparison between the ancients and the moderns, comes through strikingly in the Supreme Court section of the book. For instance, Dry addresses a range of establishment clause cases, many of which deal with the issue of religion and public education. For religious people, there is often considerable deliberation about whether or not to send their children to public schools because they tend to be “religion-free” zones, giving the impression to children from religious families that religion should be privatized or compartmentalized from public discussion. This classically liberal vision of religion (particularly most visions of Christianity currently in America) does not cohere with the manner in which religious people understand their religious beliefs, which often have serious implications for education and public discussion. The reader would better understand this complexity had Dry taken the normative challenge of the ancients more seriously. As is often the case in political thought, Dry makes the mistake of thinking that you can properly understand the place of religion within political society without understanding the nature of religious beliefs and the religious people who hold them. In my estimation, the ancient conception of these is superior to the modern conception in important respects.

Along these lines, the book is a bit frustrating for its essentially unexamined “celebration of liberal democracy as the best possible form of government” (288). Surely, this is a highly controversial position in contemporary political thought and cannot simply be the unargued assumption lurking beneath his historical presentation. As stated above, the historical presentation itself would benefit from a more nuanced and complicated normative framework. Despite all of this, the book does indeed offer much to think about, and the examination of individual thinkers is helpful and, at times, astute, even though the manner in which Dry relates these thinkers does not go deeply enough.