The lectures trace chronologically the history of liberty from its emergence in classical Greece to the modern day, considering great personalities, events, ideas, and thinkers in the context of liberty’s history.

Major topics include:

• the legacy of ideas and institutions of freedom from Greece and Rome
• Christianity and the Middle Ages
• the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation
• the American and French Revolutions
• the important economic, social, and political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The course concludes with a discussion of the impact of modern science and technology upon traditional institutions and ideas of freedom.