Toward the light of liberty : the struggles for freedom and rights that made the modern Western world
(Book)
Author
Published
New York : Walker & Co., 2007.
Format
Book
Edition
1st U.S. ed.
Status
Port Angeles - Nonfiction (Adult)
323.09 GRAYLIN
1 available
323.09 GRAYLIN
1 available
Copies
Location | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Port Angeles - Nonfiction (Adult) | 323.09 GRAYLIN | Available |
Description
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More Details
Published
New York : Walker & Co., 2007.
Edition
1st U.S. ed.
Physical Desc
336 pages, [16] pages of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cm.
Language
English
Notes
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. [301]-324) and index.
Description
Do we take our liberties for granted at the risk of losing them in the war on terror? Grayling (Descartes: The Life and Times of a Genius), a professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a leading British public intellectual, believes so. This book is, in some respects, an old-fashioned, triumphalist history of the rise of Western liberty since the 16th century (with Martin Luther, John Locke and Elizabeth Cady Stanton playing leading roles), but nevertheless serves as a stirring call to arms to defend freedom from its enemies within and without. Grayling argues that the struggle for liberty has been one of sacrifice and hardship on the part of many heroic individuals. Despite the blood and the violence, it has been worth it. Today's ordinary Western citizen is, in sixteenth-century terms, a lord: a possessor of rights, entitlements, opportunities and resources that only an aristocrat of that earlier period could hope for. But, Grayling somberly writes, the process of losing our inheritance of liberty might have already begun.--From publisher's description.