This is a recording of a discussion at the Bendigo Writers Festival between Paul Barclay and myself on morality and history. It was broadcast on ABC’s Big Ideas programme on Thursday 21 September.

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An absolute tour de force. I can imagine it replacing Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy on many a bookshelf – certainly mine’
Tom Holland

There is little available to compare with it. Anyone with a serious interest in the history and nature of modernity and the human condition would be the poorer for not reading it.
Jonathan Israel

What I love about Kenan Malik’s book is its unashamed, unabashed ambition… A tour de force of lucidity and narrative skill.
Michael Ignatieff

This is intellectual history in the grand manner, in the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, written with the same clarity, accessibility and narrative verve as the master himself… We are all in Kenan Malik’s debt. This is a majestic and timely work.
Jonathan Sacks

The image is from the poster for Man on Wire, James Marsh’s 2008 documentary about Philippe Petit who, in 1974, walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Centre’s twin towers in New York.