In Thinking About Liberty: An Historian¿s Approach, the eminent historian QuentinSkinner traces a path in the history of ideas that involves different ways of thinkingabout liberty ¿ a central concept in social and political thought in today¿s Westerndemocracies ¿ that are different from the usual liberal expectation. The definition offreedom as the absence of interference (by external agencies or by the self ), thoughwidespread, was by no means the only one prevailing. Skinner discusses two otherdistinct strands in the genealogy of modern liberty, besides that mentioned, namelyfreedom as an absence of dependence (as in the freeman or free man vs slave) andfreedom as self-realisation. Skinner¿s concern is to call attention to these ways ofthinking about freedom that are lately in danger of being forgotten. The lecturealso presents Skinner¿s 2006 Balzan Prize research project, which involved youngEuropean scholars in addressing questions about the place of civil, religious andpolitical liberty in the formation of modern Europe.