The Triumph of Liberty: A 2, 000 Year History Through the Lives of Freedom's Champions Book

Of humankind's great achievements over the past 2,000 years, one towers above all the rest: the arduous, painstaking process of wresting liberty from tyranny's iron fist. The Triumph of Liberty chronicles this, our most inspiring story, through sixty-five biographical portraits. From the millions of men and women whose struggles and successes have made freedom possible, Jim Powell has chosen a few talented, courageous individuals, and by weaving together their moving life-stories tells brilliantly the saga of liberty as a whole.

Some of these heroes and heroines, like Thomas Jefferson, were born wealthy and died in debt. Others, like Benjamin Franklin, were self-made success stories. But most of freedom's patriots were commoners inspired by something more important than love of money. The ranks of Powell's army are populated by a failed corset maker, a handkerchief weaver's daughter, a former slave, and a wandering hobo. From these humble beginnings, Powell's champions rose to fight for the greatest cause that humankind has ever known.

They suffered terribly for their beliefs. Many of them spent time in jail, a full dozen were exiled, two were beheaded, one was shot to death, one had his eye poked out, and one disappeared mysteriously without a trace. They fought against the abuse of political power -- against the Nazis, against the Soviet and Chinese communists, and against tyrants at home. Edward Coke battled for an independent judiciary, Algernon Sidney for popular sovereignty, William Lloyd Garrison for the abolition of slavery, and Leonard Read for education -- without which none of the other rights can matter. With few exceptions, where they fought, they won.

Some of these men and women, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Martin Luther King, Jr., remain famous. Others, like John Lilburne, a seventeenth-century "Leveller" who spent most of his adult life in prison battling England's infamous Star Chamber, are almost unknown. Some of Powell's choices -- Erasmus, Cicero, Locke, Wollstonecraft, and Frederick Douglass -- have often before been praised by those who love liberty. Others -- Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonard Read, and Louis L'Amour -- may be surprising. Others still -- like Milton Friedman or Margaret Thatcher -- controversial.

Any one of these life-stories, based on biographies, letters, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and interviews with leading scholars, could make a book. Taken together, they form a saga of epic proportions. Here, in a single volume, are the greatest achievements of humankind and the first-ever full story of the triumph of liberty.