Progress in American society comes through careful analysis of the past, choosing the best path forward by interrogating what has come before. Freedom & Responsibility collects philosophical, political, and personal readings from the past and present that showcase the progress of American society through the themes of taking responsibility for the things that have afforded us the freedoms we enjoy in the USA.

Freedom & Responsibility is designed for a wide range of courses and readers. The many shorter, accessible works can serve students of rhetoric, history, and composition. By providing a broad spectrum of complexity in these anthologized readings, students also have access to higher-order works that address the inherent complexity of American society.

Authors include Susan B. Anthony, Marcus Aurelius, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Jefferson, Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, Winona LaDuke, Abraham Lincoln, Niccolò Machiavelli, Angela Morales, Barack Obama, Richard Rodriguez, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, Mark Twain, Jose Antonio Vargas, Woodrow Wilson, and Mary Wollstonecraft.