What makes a modern free society? Sociology professor Milan Zafirovski explores the question in his book Identifying a Free Society -- Conditions and Indicators (Haymarket Books).

He uses four conditions -- a free economy, a free political system or democracy, a free civil society or private sphere of life, and a free culture -- and draws on empirical data to compare countries around the world.

"The first inspiration was academic and theoretical, to apply a sociological holistic perspective on the subject," he says. "The second was a real-life one, to address whether and how Western and similar societies differ in elements of a modern free society, thus freedom."