Of humankinds great achievements over the past 2,000 years, one towers above all the rest: the arduous, painstaking process of wresting liberty from tyrannys 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, he tells brilliantly the saga of liberty as a whole.

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 Englands infamous Star Chamber, are almost unknown. Some of Powells 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--are 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Any one of these life stories, based on biographies, letters, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and interviews with leading scholars, could make a book.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, are the greatest achievements of humankind and the first-ever full story of the triumph of liberty.

For more than thirty years, Jim Powell has gathered material for The Triumph of Liberty. He has interviewed scholars, pursued research in major libraries, and visited booksellers, museums, and historic sites around the world.