A C Grayling explores the story of seventeenth-century Europe and the birth of the modern mind. He argues that it was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, and reveals how a fundamentally new way of perceiving the world emerged, as reason rose to prominence over tradition and the rights of the individual took centre stage in philosophy and politics, a shift that would define Western thought for centuries to come.

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A C Grayling

A C Grayling is Master of the New College of Humanities and a supernumerary fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. He has written and edited over 30 books on philosophy and other subjects, including The Good Book, Ideas that Matter, Liberty in the Age of Terror, The God Argument and The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind. He has been a columnist for the Guardian and the Times, is the Editor of Online Review London and is a contributing editor of Prospect magazine. Follow him on Twitter @acgrayling