Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States

How do we explain differences in relations between Europeans and native peoples in America and New Zealand? Part of the answer lies with the enlightenment-inspired leader Captain James Cook, who regarded all people as sharing a common humanity.

How to create a society that offered equitable opportunities to people in search of land? The American solution: continuous acquisition of land to reconcile freedom and liberty with an idea of equity. An example is this broadside for new lands in Iowa and Nebraska (1872).

Betty Friedan gave the new feminism a depth of purpose in her extraordinary book, The Feminine Mystique (1963), which centered on an old "problem that has no name" and a new goal of "raising consciousness" among women. To traditional ideas of liberty and freedom it added the idea of psychological liberation.

A pivot point in the history of racism was World War II. Under heavy pressure from Afro-American leaders, Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order banning racial discrimination in war industries. The result was a revolution in economic opportunity, for those welders in New Britain, Connecticut, 1943, and millions of others.