I first read Naomi Wolf in college, when The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women came out. This book helped me so much—I can’t say it got me over all my body/appearance-related issues, but it at least gave me a more objective way to look at them.

Reading The Beauty Myth, I felt both validated and liberated. It was obvious that Wolf really understood the psychological and historical forces at play every time I, and every other woman about my age, looked into the mirror. I appreciated both the clarity of her thought and the passion of her writing.

I feel the same after reading her latest book, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, in which she turns her rigorous intellect and her fiery opinions to the subject of democracy itself. The result is both a blistering critique of where our country is, and an inspiring vision for how to get it to where we know it can and should be.

The book begins with an exploration of the question “What is America?” She argues that it is not a place, but a state of mind. “The consciousness of freedom—the psychology of freedom that is “America”—is one of expansiveness, trust of the self, and hope. It is a consciousness of limitless inquiry ... Liberty is a state of mind before it is anything else. You can have a nation of wealth and power, but without this state of mind—this psychological “America”—you are living in a deadening consciousness; with this state of mind, you can be in a darkened cell waiting for your torturer to arrive and yet inhabit a chainless space as wide as the sky.”

In her recent travels across the geographical country of America, she came to see that most of its inhabitants no longer experience this limitless sense of possibility. In order to discover why, and for guidance on how we can reassume this state of mind, she returned to the writings of our Founding Fathers. Here are some of her reflections on the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration is not saying: “Hurrah, you are born free, enjoy your bingo or your yoga as you see fit.” ... Rather, it is saying something darker and more personally demanding: you have a sacred obligation to take the most serious possible steps and undergo the most serious kinds of personal risks in defense of this freedom that is your natural right; and you must rise up against those who seek to subdue you—wherever and whenever they appear ... Jefferson left us not a guarantee of a life basking in a lawn chair, but rather a guarantee of a life of personal upheaval and sacrifice when necessary.”

I am not exaggerating when I say that Wolf’s interpretation blew my mind. Like most of us who’ve grown up in the US, I’ve read the Declaration dozens of times, but I never got that “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was not so much about me, but about this idea of freedom, of human worth, of liberty, that our country was built on.

Of course, there are those who choose to focus on the Founding Fathers’ inconsistencies—many of them owned slaves, and women were left completely out of the bargain. But those historical realities don’t discount the radical nature of the ideal they put before us and the challenge implicit in that ideal, to which they ask all Americans to rise—the aspiration and struggle toward ever-more-perfect expressions of liberty.

There’s much much more I could say about this book. As I read about Wolf’s ultimately unsuccessful attempts to talk to someone in Mayor Bloomberg’s office contrasted with the friendly reception she received at the Army recruitment headquarters, I laughed. As I read story after story of heroic and oppressed individuals taking on and fighting for this “American” state of mind, I cried openly on the subway, more than once.

Mostly, though, reading about how our rights have been chipped away bit by bit, I got fired up and motivated to act. Why should it be so difficult to conduct a protest when our right to do so is right there in the First Amendment? And how are protests supposed to do any good when they are contained in fenced-off “protest” areas, when dissent is managed by the powers that be? Why are voter eligibility rules and processes so arcane and opaque? How democratic is it to have to jump through a thousand hoops in order to run for public office?

It’s true that no one of us can do everything, and there’s a lot to do. Reading this amazing book has inspired me to step up my real-world actions in support of the causes I believe in. More on that tomorrow.