In a sense, these two books, bearing almost identical titles,could not be more different. Patten's work is a narrowlyfocused study of those passages in Hegel (primarily in thePhilosophy of Right) that deal explicitly and pointedly with theidea of freedom. He proposes a "civic humanist" interpreta-tion of Hegelian freedom. Such an interpretation is designedto make sense of what Patten calls the "Sittlichkeit thesis,"according to which ethical norms are composed of, orotherwise reducible to, duties and virtues embodied in thecentral institutions of modern social life. Franco's work ismuch broader in scope. It offers a commentary on theentirety of the Philosophy of Right and argues, plausiblyenough, that Hegel's political philosophy is fundamentally aphilosophy of freedom. It briefly situates that philosophy inthe context of Hegel's immediate predecessors (Rousseau,Kant, Fichte) and reviews Hegel's own intellectual develop-ment, but its main goal is to show how Hegelian argumentsabout abstract right, morality, and ethical life constitute anaccount of what it means to be free.