New Books in History Moritz Föllmer, "The Quest for Individual Freedom: A Twentieth-Century European History" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Jan 21, 2026
In this engaging discussion, Moritz Föllmer, an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, explores the complex notion of individual freedom throughout the tumultuous twentieth century in Europe. He critiques traditional rise-and-fall narratives, emphasizing the diverse understandings of freedom shaped by wars and social movements. Föllmer connects historical struggles for autonomy with contemporary challenges posed by populism and disruptions from the pandemic. The conversation dives into how employment shapes personal liberty and how colonial contexts influenced freedom claims, all while highlighting the intricate balance between individual desires and collective political objectives.
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Freedom As Degrees And Claims
- Georg Simmel shows freedom is a matter of degrees combining subjective feeling and objective constraints.
- Föllmer uses this to treat freedom as claim-making with tangible social effects.
War Both Restricted And Opened Freedom
- Total war imposed constraints yet created unexpected opportunities, especially for women's economic independence.
- Wartime disorder expanded social space, producing contested but lasting shifts in autonomy.
Welfare As Freedom And Standardization
- Social democracy reframed freedom as expanded by welfare and autonomy from family dependence.
- Yet welfare standardization and later critiques (neoliberal, new left, feminist) produced tensions about its emancipatory reach.
