A C Grayling is a genuine example of that much bandied about thing, a most remarkable man. Born in Rhodesia, raised in Nyasaland, he discovered a love for philosophy at the age of twelve, going on to study at ever more prestigious institutions, culminating in Magdelene College, Oxford.

Apart from being the author of thirty books he writes widely on contemporary issues, including war crimes, euthenasia, secularism, the legalisation of drugs and human rights. He founded the New College of The Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London, where he is presently the Master, and was, just this year, awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to philosophy.

His most recent book, The Age of Genius, the Seventeenth Century and the Invention of the Modern Mind, argues that the mind-set of modern times was established in the 1600s, amid terrible war and great injustice. His contention is that, despite such turmoil, this was the period in which ideas of magic and revelation, and the dead hand of religious law, first gave way to science and the rational, leading the way to the Enlightenment and the modern world as we know it. It is a work of philosophy but also of history, following the lives of some of the most significant figures from the period.