…the federal and local governments to restrict and punish everything from peaceful public protests, obscenity, and political speech of “bad tendency.” How the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 led to dramatic restrictions of political speech and indictments of thousands of activists protesting American participation in World War I. The remarkable development in Wendell Holmes’ conception of the First Amendment, from his opinion uph…

…tracted Peter the Great; How Peter believed in “moving fast and breaking tradition” and combined enlightenment reforms with ruthless suppression; How Peter kicked off his modernizing reform with a fashion statement: ordering men to shave their beards and women to dress like Parisians; How Peter’s reforms planted the seed for more liberal Enlightenment reforms; How Catherine the Great introduced the idea and principle of freedom of speech into Russ…