It is very difficult to uncover accurate connections between ideas and events in history. A.C. Grayling is a philosopher and polemicist with a particular story to tell about the rise of freedom in the 17th century. In the introduction to his new book he writes:

I hope the sketches offered here will illustrate the claim that the 17th century is truly the moment that history changed course so profoundly that everything before it is another world, and that it and the times since are our world.