Towards the Light

by A.C. Grayling

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.

Each of these struggles was a memorable human drama, and Grayling skillfully interweaves the stories of celebrated and little-known heroes alike—from Martin Luther and John Locke to the sixteenth-century French scholar Sebastien Castellio and the nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The triumphs and sacrifices of those who dared to oppose authority ring loudly down the ages, proving how hard-won each successive victory has been. And yet, as Grayling persuasively shows in a cautionary coda, democratic governments under pressure have often thought it necessary to restrict rights in the name of freedom, further underlining how precious they are. Toward the Light of Liberty is, thus, particularly relevant as we head toward an election season in which our own civil liberties will surely be an issue.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Religion, Atheism

340 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2007

About the author

Anthony Clifford "A. C." Grayling is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

He is a director and contributor at Prospect Magazine, as well as a Vice President of the British Humanist Association. His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic. He has described himself as "a man of the left" and is associated in Britain with the new atheism movement, and is sometimes described as the 'Fifth Horseman of New Atheism'. He appears in the British media discussing philosophy.

Reviews

[Peck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feeling the fire in my belly growing with each turn of the page....

[Mark Hebden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the title sounds like this may be a religious text on conversion, it couldn’t be more opposite. Perhaps a deliberate play on words, the true point of this book is the long, drawn out battle for human rights that is still being fought today. It is very much a Whig history of the rights of the individual which are increasingly sacrificed on the modern alter of collective security.

The text briefly touches on Athenian “true” democracy and Roman politics we travel through the renaissance and enlightenment and in to the modern era. It is too small a book to be a comprehensive history of all the individual battles fought in the struggle, but it is a catalogue of the themes of liberties won in the “Western World”.

Lord Acton takes a bruising regarding his hypothesis that liberty was a product of Christianity. Grayling pulls this apart with relative simplicity, documenting the horrors of the The Spanish Inquisition under Tourquemada. Although Martin Luther pushed against conventional boundaries of thought, they were soon reinforced once more by the likes of John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli while Luther himself was a staunch conservative when it came to the filthy masses.

A fascinating man who Grayling tells us about is Sebastian Castellio, who became a victim of Calvin for his open minded belief system and robust defence of Michael Servetus, who had previously been executed by Calvin for Heresy. Voltaire wrote of Castillo “We can measure the virulence of this tyranny by the persecution to which Castellio was exposed at Calvin’s insistance—although Castellio was a far greater scholar than Calvin, whose jealousy drove him out of Geneva”.

The cruelty and irony of slavery in American independence and the French terrors post-revolution are prominent, as are the various uprisings in Britain such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Chartism and the suffragette movement. We finish on the subject of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the appendices are a collection of documents enshrining our rights as they stood and stand. A superb book with a litany of inspirational figures and heavily laden with their quotes and writings.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most vital account..

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written history of the emergence and evolution of human rights in the Western world, which was adopted globally, in theory if not always in practice, in the decade after WWII. Grayling rightly points out that we are now so accustomed to having these rights and freedoms that they are largely taken for granted and the long, bitter and bloody struggle to attain them is being forgotten. Such complacence poses an outright threat to these hard-won liberties, he argues, as successive governments erode them in the name of homeland 'security' with increased surveillance and lawful access to personal data. We need constant reminding that our core civil liberties are precious and vulnerable so that vigilance is exercised to protect them.

This was quite a dense and slow read (for me anyway) but without question a worthwhile one.

[Philip Coulter · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is the core of a good book here - it's a (mostly) very readable account of the development of the idea of liberty and some of the struggle towards rights and freedom.
On the downside Grayling has the tendency to get bogged down - in responding to Lord Acton on the role of religion in this struggle, a large chunk of a short book spent on Galileo (an important topic, but one I would expect his readers to already be familiar with) and this disrupts the flow of the book.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic synopsis of the Historical evolution of liberty. Should be compulsory reading for all those entering politics or thinking about it. Shows how hard it was to attain the level of freedoms we currently enjoy; how much blood was shed in getting here; and how our taking such a hard won right for granted places us in very real danger of losing it!

[Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

You must read this to believe in smooth writing. AC Grayling is a magnificent researcher and writer. The amount of things you learn from this book about history of liberty and religion is overwhelming. He reminded me of obvious issues such as freedom of speech and thought that I had forgotten. He also rises so many good questions. All and all a thought provoking book.l

[John Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stood up and applauded a few times while reading this. Should be a set school text.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant analysis of the history of liberty since the reformation; how it was gained at immense cost, and how we cannot take its existence for granted

[Matt McCormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated this book by Grayling much more than the last - a brief history of the implications of the scientific revolution. Here, Grayling focuses on the concept of liberty and what allowed it to become a foundational aspect of western culture. Starting with the breaking of the chains of Christian Catholic religious power to the fight against tyranny of the monarch and through the more modern rejection of slavery, Grayling is knowledgeable and insightful.

It's a fascinating concept - we as individual humans have, simply by our existence - rights/protections that cannot be abridged by prelate, a king, or even a majority of our fellow humans. It's also fascinating in how quickly we now seem to be willing to weaken that innate right. This would be Grayling's point - the gift of personal sovereignty was developed and fought for at great expense - it is not assured, and it can easily dissolve.

[KEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liberty is one concept that people take for granted if they have never have had to fight for it politically or physically. The normal for people is liberty. Thus, freedoms are slowly eroded over time through small legislative actions in the name of security. The problem with those new laws is that there will always need to be a new law because there will be a loophole discovered. Civil liberties are not something that should be given up in the name of security.

Grayling does a splendid job of going through the history of how liberties were attained. He gives history on influential figures such as John Locke, British means of obtaining liberty, and how the medieval times slowly paved the way for liberty.

Overall, this a great book for an overview of how liberty came to be and how the past, present, and future actions of the current generation will maintain or lose liberty.

[MarkL · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after I heard him speak.

Penetrating historical account of the always- and painfully-difficult struggle for liberty. He delves into the Catholic Church's control of how to think, to the age of kings who controlled and dictated what one's place in life is, to the women's suffrage movement, to the struggle for workers' rights. In the end he paints a dire image of how we're losing these hard-fought liberties in the false belief that national security is at stake. Examples are: the misguided Patriot Act in the US; and the push for a National ID Card in the UK.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grayling takes you on the long and complicated journey of how over the centuries we have strove for liberty and how it remains a constant battle.
You have to admire how Grayling can present such an indepth, thoughtful exploration of the various attempts to increase our access to more liberty. How these struggles have been fought, quite literally and how we should not take these hard fought gains as permanent.

[Deana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant .. a must read for the mechanisms that set liberty in motion

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about the history of Westerners' struggle for liberties and rights from the time of the Reformation onward. Grayling covers religious liberties, freedom of inquiry during the scientific revolution, the abolition of slavery, workers' rights, women's rights, changing ideas about democracy, and the more recent notion of universal human rights (and the threat they face in post-9/11 America and Britain). He does a good job of explaining how one successful struggle for greater equality and fairness led to public awareness of other wrongs and the resulting struggle to remedy them. Based on Grayling's book, I imagine the history of human rights as a line of dynamite sticks, with the first spark being lit when centralized political power was wrested away from the Catholic church. The fire then progressed to each successive stick of dynamite, igniting change in a different sphere of human life.

But this analogy doesn't entirely work, because Grayling also records how previously achieved progress can be undone and emphasizes that the active maintenance of rights and liberties is a constant task. The moment those rights stop being actively maintained, or are subverted or weakened through legislation, advances that took centuries to achieve can be reversed. And it's unfortunately much easier to do away with a previously-granted liberty than to get it back after it's been taken away.

So maybe a better analogy is an arduous mountain climb, where there's always the chance of a misstep or a halt in the general upward trend. Grayling combines these two perspectives -- the dynamite-like spread of ideas about change, and the long, slow process of making and keeping practical gains -- into one central argument. The idea that women should have equal rights, for example, may have originally entered the sphere of public debate because discussions about abolishing slavery paved the way, but the actual process of gaining women's rights in a pragmatic, concrete sense took decades and still continues to this day, with several setbacks along the way. Nevertheless, Grayling argues, people want to be free, and once the process has been set in motion, increasing liberties is inevitable.

Grayling presents a particularly compelling case that the entrenched ruling classes of Europe and America opposed progress every step of the way out of fear, greed, snobbery, and conformity, meaning that religious dissenters, scientists, women, slaves, minorities, workers, and others had to work long and hard to wrest even an ounce of power from the hands of the elites -- mostly clergymen and people with inherited family money or positions of political authority. It's important to realize that throughout history, conservatives -- whatever name they may go by in their particular country or era -- have done everything in their power to restrict open inquiry, maintain their own privileges at the expense of basic rights for others, and slow the progress of democracy and equality every single inch of the way.

Many conservatives, when looking back over history, realize the inhumanity and uncharitableness of the previous generation's conservative views (for example, no conservatives today are arguing in favor of slavery), and therefore modern conservatives have to do whatever they can to distance themselves from these discredited ideas, all the while resisting progress in their own time period, unaware that in 100 years, everyone in that future era will shake their heads in shame at how the conservatives of the 21st century treated their fellow citizens. The fact that we in the West enjoy as many liberties as we do is in spite of the undermining efforts of conservatives, a group which has traditionally been overwhelmingly comprised of those who believe that some deity is on their side, giving divine sanction to their greed, self-interest, and ambition.

My one (minor) complaint about this book is that it's sometimes overly dry and stuffy in tone. There are times when Grayling writes with true passion, energy, and lucidity, but there are many other times when his writing is awkward and overly complex. He also sometimes reserves too much page time for his pet interests, even if they are only tangentially relevant to the topic at hand, and loses his central argument in a slew of minute historical details that don't obviously relate to the thesis of the chapter. I also found it a bit odd that Grayling chose to leave out discussion of the modern struggle for equal freedoms faced by atheists/secularists and homosexuals in the modern Western world, but I assume this is because he wanted to keep the book a reasonable length, and these two issues could each warrant an entire chapter in their own right.

Overall, however, this an excellent book for anyone interested in why and how the contemporary West has advanced further than any other group in world history in terms of the extension of equal rights and liberties for all human beings, not just wealthy, white, male, and religious human beings.

[Pedro Pérez Motilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leído en 2023.

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, by the well-known British philosopher, academic and broadcaster, is subtitled “The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights That Made the Modern West”. It is a history of liberty in the western world and makes the case that liberty should be prized as a hard-won and permanently threatened feature of modern western society. It is a very good book, well-reasoned in its argument and very wide in the scope of its analysis.

It demands attention from the reader, though the style is accessible and there are some helpful notes. [Note on notes - I look at the notes when I begin a book, to see whether they are just references, in which case I ignore them; or substantive commentaries on the text, in which case I will read them as I read the book. Some books - Red Plenty by Francis Spufford comes to mind - have notes so extensive they are a work in their own right. The notes to this book are a bit of both.]

I learned a couple of big things I should have figured out before but haven’t. First, the arrival of Christianity and its dominance for several hundred years of thought and education is seen by many philosophers, including Edward Gibbon, as a sad and benighted misdirection of human understanding, away from the truths and insights of the ancient world. People like St Augustine are St Thomas Aquinas are often described as the great sythesisers, who took Christian doctrine and made it compatible with the wisdom of the ancients. But actually they were just fudging it - religions of all kinds are based on supernatural beliefs and are a step backwards from the secular and human-based thinking of non-theistic philosophy. So the Renaissance was not only a rediscovery of the classical civilisations, it was also the beginning of an awakening from the long dark night of Christian theocracy that reached its conclusion in the Enlightenment.

Grayling convincingly shows that liberty of thought was only achieved in the West when the impregnability of religious belief was removed. As long as you had people like Torquemada, of the Spanish Inquisition, going around torturing people because he suspected they might not be thinking in line with doctrine, liberty was impossible. It was only when religion was successfully put in its supernatural and faith-based box that people were free to think through reason and intellect alone.

Theocracies in the modern world remain in thrall to religious doctrine and the people suffer, as a result, a denial of liberty.

The second point I picked up is that liberty is not to be taken for granted. It is encroached upon all the time by, for example, changes to law, even those with clear grounding in the need to tackle human evil, like restrictions on the personal freedoms of all in order to make acts of terrorism more difficult. So it should be spoken of as a societal good, something to be protected and enhanced, and public policy should strive to achieve that.

The language occasionally gets a bit tortuous but this is a very enjoyable read. It only deals with the West, which is fair enough. I recommend it, especially to those who enjoy following the parade of history as it unfolds around a single concept.

[Al Bità · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the West, we often take our rights and liberties for granted. New generations simply grow up with them in place, and accept them as normal, and enjoy what they provide without so much as a thought on how they got there. They've always been there, and in a way we assume they will always be there. As a result, they soon become under-appreciated, and sometimes even unloved.

The so-called 'war on terror' resulting from the Al Qaeda attack on the Pentagon in Washington D C and the twin towers in New York resulted in the reining-in of personal and civic liberties, in the name of national security, of course, which has spread throughout the Western world like a plague: secrecy; restrictions on movement; increased policing powers to detain without explanation for extensive periods of time; the imprisoning of people and their subjection even to tortures (often 'modified' to permit non-physical assaults such as intimidation, isolation, deprivation, sexual and cultural humiliation and insults, etc. as acceptable); phone-tapping; computer hacking; and so on. What is worse, the people have been cajoled into accepting these restrictions as a kind of patriotic duty, and even raising objections to these incursions into our privacy and freedoms are almost sufficient in themselves to draw the accusation of treason.

In this book, Grayling goes back over the last 500 years to tell the story of how the development of our freedoms over the centuries. In the beginning, it was slow: the powers that were at the time were strong enough to prevent unacceptable and new ideas and attack them rather ruthlessly. Individuals persisted, however, in their arguments, and eventually established guidelines usable by others to pursue and develop. In the first part of his book Grayling therefore concentrates on these individuals and their ideas. Part II tends more to follow trends that developed as they were gradually accepted and incorporated in what we now perceive as out rights, privileges, and freedoms.

What emerges, in Grayling's ever lucid and calm prose, is that this 'journey towards the light' was not an easy path, but one that took courage and persistence over long periods of time, to overcome prejudices, biases, authoritarianism, etc. and to ensure that they are crucial to democratic and humanistic principles for our society. The fruit of this long pursuit are like precious jewels that need to be protected and defended. The repercussions of the 'war on terror' has shown just how fragile these precious jewels are, and how easily and quickly they can be denied and eliminated by an unrestrained nationalism. What we took for granted is suddenly no longer so.

This book, then, is a warning. Be aware of the history of the struggle for our rights, and realise how precious those rights are for all of us. We need to defend them or we will lose them. And once we have lost them it will not be easy to get them back.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering the threats to liberty the world is experiencing at the moment, both external, from radical militant ideologies, and internal, from reactionary laws, this is a must read book. It is a well written summary of the long struggle for liberty and freedom. It puts our current freedoms into perspective, much of which we take for granted, while illustrating exactly what we have to lose. It is sobering to read about the torture, punishment, and coercion used to keep people silent and inline and the sacrifices it took to push back and allow liberty to shine through.

While the Reformation got things started, Grayling makes clear that it wasn't until scientific thought started to take hold, revealing the truth of the universe, that freedom of thought started to crystalize into a real movement. The success of science against religious dogma influenced the social and political thinkers to start applying reason and liberty to everyday life. And once the world started moving in that direction, and despite setbacks, it was difficult to stop the advancement of liberty. It was always difficult, though, as Grayling reminds the reader, which makes it even more important to protect what we have now.

[FiveBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Nabeel Yasin, the Iraqi poet, writer, academic and politician, has chosen to discuss A C Grayling's Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights that Make the Modern West , on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Democracy in Iraq, saying that:

“Grayling writes about the idea that people need constitutions, that people need freedom from oppression and also people need to express their demands to the state. This is very important because the state should try to provide benefits for people not keep them in jail or oppress them.”

The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/nabeel-yasin

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong, flawed, important work with a valuable, urgent message

Published in 2007 by Walker and Company
288 pages.

I had to pick up this book as soon as I stumbled upon it. One of the themes in my history classes is the expansion of freedom in the West following the same general timeline that Grayling follows. Who doesn't like to have his own thoughts echoed by a major English philosopher?

Strengths:

I do recommend this book - it is a readable, admirable attempt at covering a vast, important topic...

Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2011/...

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Human rights and liberties, won with blood, sweat, and tears over hundreds of years, have been (and continue to be) casually eroded & cast away in the post 9-11 era, for a false promise of increased security. This story of the winning of those rights, and the ideas behind them, reminds us how precious they are, and why we should fight to retain them - and indeed, why we should battle still to extend them to all on our planet, in the full sense as articulated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[Philip Chaston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grayling always provides a good canter through the fields of philosophical history. His highways and byways are familiar, though he finds the odder person or figure that usually peep through the glazed panes of the archive. A useful guide to exploring commonalities between left-liberalism and libertarianism. Both share a stake in upholding the Enlightenment heritage and a pragmatic muscular civil liberalism is a valuable ally in overturning the attacks on liberty championed by our supine politicians by the National Security Apparatus.

[Wei Tai Ting · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important book in an age where our civil liberties are increasingly eroded by the state. There are moments of illumination (pardon the pun) and impact, and the material is certainly well-researched and substantial. My only quibble is stylistic (which is why I give 3 instead of 4 stars). Grayling can be rather dry at times, and his sentences are clumsy and long-winded a little too often, piling clauses on top of each other. Better editing might have fixed that. Worth reading but I wished that I could have liked the book more.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine discussion of the gradual and painful processes leading to freedom of conscience, thought, and inquiry, as well as human rights; an important reminder that these hard-won rights are much easier to lose and take for granted than to gain or regain.

[Craig Bolton]

Toward the Light of Liberty: The Struggles for Freedom and Rights That Made the Modern Western World by A. C. Grayling (2007)

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book highlighting the struggles humanity has gone through in the name of liberty and rights. It feels all the more valid in todays political climate.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a good book I have to admit to a bit of disappointment. Grayling speaks quite better than he writes. Nonetheless it is an excellent fable.