The rights we are at grave risk of taking for granted in the West today, from the basic right to vote to the freedom of conscience, were won in a series of hard-fought and bloody struggles over five hundred years, and these endevours constitute one of the great monuments to the human spirit. This is the story AC Grayling sets out to tell in his insparational history of ideas in action, while challenging us to consider how we can protect our precious freedoms in today's difficult world.