Unfree Speech, Joshua Wong
Unfree Speech, Joshua Wong
List: $15.00 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.50

Unfree Speech
The Threat to Global Democracy and Why We Must Act, Now

Author: Joshua Wong

Narrator: Dexter Galang

Unabridged: 5 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 02/18/2020


Synopsis

An urgent manifesto for global democracy from Joshua Wong, the 23-year-old phenomenon leading Hong Kong's protests - and Nobel Peace Prize nominee - with an introduction by Ai Weiwei

With global democracy under threat, we must act together to defend out rights: now.

When he was 14, Joshua Wong made history. While the adults stayed silent, Joshua staged the first-ever student protest in Hong Kong to oppose National Education -- and won.

Since then, Joshua has led the Umbrella Movement, founded a political party, and rallied the international community around the anti-extradition bill protests, which have seen 2 million people -- more than a quarter of the population -- take to Hong Kong's streets. His actions have sparked worldwide attention, earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and landed him in jail twice.

Composed in three parts, Unfree Speech chronicles Joshua's path to activism, collects the letters he wrote as a political prisoner under the Chinese state, and closes with a powerful and urgent call for all of us globally to defend our democratic values.

When we stay silent, no one is safe. When we free our speech, our voice becomes one.

About The Author

Joshua Wong was born in 1996. He has been named by TIME, Fortune, Prospect, and Forbes as one of the world's most influential leaders. In 2018, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his leading role in the Umbrella Revolution. He is Secretary-General of Demosisto, a pro-democracy organization which he founded in 2016 that advocates self-determination for Hong Kong. Joshua came onto the political scene in 2011 at the age of fourteen, when he founded Scholarism and successfully protested against the enforcement of Chinese National Education in Hong Kong. He has been arrested numerous times for his protesting and activism and has served more than one hundred days in jail. He has been the subject of two documentaries, including the Netflix original documentary, Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower. This is the first time his work has been published in English.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dani on May 20, 2020

What were you doing when you were 14 years old? I'm sure it wasn't trying to overthrow the influence of Communist China in your home country. Unless your name is Joshua Wong, that is. 5/5 stars. ebook, 256 pages. Read from May 12, 2020 to May 13, 2020. Review at The Pluviophile Writer: [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Sabin on November 09, 2021

Quite a short book, with a lot of rhetoric and a bit of context. But it’s not much more than that. I’m still not clear on how exactly peaceful protest, or any kind of protest for that matter, are supposed to influence the decisions of the ones in power, since the people don’t actually elect most of......more

Goodreads review by RH on April 18, 2020

This is a decent enough read for folks who are looking to understand the scenes of mass protests and unrest in Hong Kong they have seen on their TV screens in the better part of the last decade. This book covers the 'permanent adolescence' of the Hong Kong political system in abundant detail, but ul......more


Quotes

“If we want freedom, we need to learn from Hong Kong. With values, tactics, and courage, Joshua Wong shows us the way.” —Timothy Snyder, best-selling author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Joshua Wong is a brave and inspiring young leader. Together we are one loud voice that cannot be silenced. Greta Thunberg

'[Wong's] tenacious dynamism shines through Unfree Speech: a guide to mobilising for democracy and representation in and far beyond Hong Kong.' –Julia Lovell, award-winning author of Maoism
 
One of the most prominent political activists in the world ... a powerful insight into the turbulence on the city's streets that made world headlines –Rana Mitter, Sunday Times

A call to arms for the Snapchat generation ... This book is a memoir of an extraordinary decade in which Wong went from a nerdy obsession with Marvel comics to a Netflix documentary in which he was characterised as a superhero for democracy. –Tim Adams, The Observer