Towards the Light

If you enjoyed Jonathan Miller's television series Brief History Of Disbelief, but were disappointed that no book resulted, Anthony Grayling's new book is for you. This book (apparently Grayling's 28th) covers similar ground, but in considerably more depth with many supporting references and notes. The rights we enjoy in the West today, from the basic right to vote in elections to freedom of conscience, were won in a series of hard-fought struggles over five hundred years. This is the human story A. C. Grayling sets out to tell in his inspirational history of ideas in action.

The author says

The point I urge in this book is that all the efforts towards securing the rights and freedoms we enjoy today (still enjoy, almost, although they are beginning to fray and diminish) cost blood, and took centuries. It dishonours those who fought for them to forget that fact now, and it does us no credit to be careless of what was thus won.

Interview with the author

A. C. Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a BHA Distinguished Supporter of Humanism.