30: How the individual invented the modern West by Larry Siedentop

The European Middle Ages have been deemed an era of regression but this couldn't be further from the truth. In this period, the foundations were laid to establish a liberal West centred around the rights of the individual. Read by Leighton Pugh.

Image: Construction of highway, eighteenth century France Engineers on horseback inspecting the work, a painting Claude-Joseph Vernet, 1775. Credit: Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo.