Toward the Light of Liberty: The Struggles for Freedom and Rights That Made the Modern Western World

The epic story of the interlocking struggles to achieve the individual rights and freedoms that characterize Western civilization, by one of the world's leading public intellectuals. Perhaps the hallmark of western civilization over the past five hundred years, writes A. C. Grayling, is the series of liberation struggles without which the ordinary citizen in Western countries would not enjoy the rights and freedoms we now take for granted. They began with the often violent battle to allow independent thought, uncontrolled by the Church, which led in time to political freedom as monarchies were gradually replaced by more representative forms of government. These in turn made possible the abolition of slavery, rights for working men and women, universal education, the enfranchisement of women, and much more.