Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Condoleezza Rice saw and felt the ferment of the American civil rights movement. She went on to become a key figure in two presidential administrations, as national security advisor and secretary of state under George W. Bush, and has been on the front lines of some of the world’s epochal events – from German reunification and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East.

Rice, now on the faculty at Stanford University, examines what those and other pivotal moments have taught us about democracy in her new book Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom. In a time of wondering whether democracy is in decline, she sits down with Library Director Crosby Kemper III to discuss the book, the global struggle for freedom, and why our country must remain its strongest proponent.