Magna Carta in 20 Places

The only book to tell Magna Carta’s story through places associated with it, through England and France to the United States

The Magna Carta has undergone an extraordinary journey from the palaces and villages of England, through the castles and towns of France, via the Middle East, and ending in the United States today. Along the way, the book dispels the popular notions that King John was an unredeemed tyrant, the baron’s champions of civil liberty, and that Magna Carta was the foundation of democracy and universal freedom. The true story is much more intriguing than a simple fiction of good defeating evil, and the author tries to answer one of the great mysteries about the Charter: why today is it much more enthusiastically revered in America than it is in the country of its origin? But myths can be powerful. And the account of how this largely technical medieval document became an inspiration to those who have struggled over centuries to win democracy and freedom under the law reveals a great deal about our need for symbols and our inclination to believe what we want to believe.

Derek J. Taylor is a journalist who covered five wars, the author of A Horse in the Bathroom: How an Old Stable Became our Dream Village Home, and a historian.