The law has been used to impose religious and moral conformity and uniformity of thought at many times in history, perhaps most (in)famously in the trial of Socrates and the heresy trials of Giordano Bruno and Galileo. More recently the obscenity laws and equality legislation have challenged the limits of free speech.

This lecture will explore how law has been used to respond to and try to delimit the expression of unpopular or challenging ideas.

A lecture by Thomas Grant QC

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/free-thinking-law

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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