# Liberty and the American Experience **URL:** **By** Jim Powell, Aaron Ross Powell, Trevor Burrus **Published:** November 24, 2014 --- Jim Powell joins us for a discussion on how the tradition of liberty in the United States was established and how it subsequently flourished. Jim Powell claims that liberty is relatively rare thing in the span of human history. Why does it seem like liberty has gained a toehold and flourished in the United States in a way it hasn’t in other places around the world? And then, once it was established, how did liberty grow in America? **Show Notes and Further Reading** Jim Powell, [_The Triumph of Liberty: A 2,000 Year History Told Through the Lives of Freedom’s Greatest Champions_](http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Liberty-Freedoms-Greatest-Champions/dp/068485967X/) (book) Captain John Smith, [_Writings with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America_](http://www.amazon.com/Captain-John-Smith-Narratives-Settlement/dp/1598530011/) (book) William Bradford, _[Of Plymouth Plantation](http://www.amazon.com/Plymouth-Plantation-1620-1647/dp/0075542811/) (book)_