Ben Wilson

Libertarian’s Progress

Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights that Made the Modern West

By

Bloomsbury 352pp £20 order from our bookshop

‘Ages of liberty … are transitions, brave interludes between eras of custom and order,’ Will Durant wrote. ‘They last while rival systems of order struggle for ascendancy; when either system wins, freedom melts away. Nothing is so disastrous to liberty as a successful revolution; the greatest tragedy that can befall an ideal is its fulfilment.’ This is certainly the sense one gets from A C Grayling’s Towards the Light; liberty thrives in movement and stagnates in dozy tranquillity. Its habits are hard learnt and often counterintuitive; it is an effort to tolerate offensive opinions and hold firm to traditions in the midst of danger. It is a matter of urgency for every age to be reminded of why these traditions are vital. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'Moser’s book offers such a gripping account of a profoundly damaged human being, trapped in a cycle of repetition,… ,
    • 'Ideas that I’d thought were set down in full continue to smoulder ... this book is only a snapshot of some larger… ,
    • 'Full of invention which, at its most pedestrian, is eminently Victorian, and at its most unrestrained wildly imagi… ,
    • 'What in other hands could have been a dry, pedantic account of Christianity’s birth and evolution becomes in Holla… ,
    • RT : One of my favourite literary magazines is celebrating 40 years this year. Here is the September edition of… ,
    • 'Now that the Thames is too fast-flowing to freeze, its spirit’s devotees ... have found other climes for their pri… ,
    • 'Bythell glowers past his till at a world in slow free fall.' on the travails of a second-hand book… ,
    Follow Us