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Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
An interesting read I quite enjoyed this outing from Prof. Grayling.
It is a brief overwiew of the struggles for freedom and liberty over the past 500 years, for a non-specialist, it is an easy read. Not dry at all in my opinion.
I have to agree with his conclusions about the state of British and US democracy since 2001.
Our freedoms and liberties were hard won and we have to be eternally vigilant against their erosion by an over-powerful centralist state.
Grayling is not a historian. And it shows. I am a huge fan of Grayling's philosophical writings, and as far as I am aware, I have read (and enjoyed) all of his published books. But this really was disappointing, despite my own active interest in human rights. The main problem is this: Grayling is not a historian. And, more importantly, it shows. The author trudges through key figures and events in his "story of the struggles for liberty and rights" offering very little historical analysis along the way. His key point is this: all the rights and... more info
A sorely needed refresher course I have no hesitation in giving Professor Grayling's book five stars. It is an education and vigorous refresher for anyone like myself who recognises names like Spinoza, Locke, Voltaire, Milton, de Tocqueville, but has only a hazy understanding of what they stand for, and only a patchy idea of the significance of the Glorious English Revolution of 1688 and the American and French revolutions, but has now in these times an uneasy feeling that the ideas and principles underpinning free societies are... more info
