• What did William "Braveheart" Wallace and George Washington have in common?
• How did we earn the right to choose our own leaders?
• What two documents have brought us from the medieval days of feudalism to present day democracy?
• And what did a snuffbox have to do with the path to democracy?

The origins of democracy, often claimed for the Ancient Greeks or the Magna Carta, are still a severely contested terrain. Into this battlefield Linda MacDonald-Lewis steps with her account of democracy's Scottish roots. She identifies the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 as the landmark document that laid the foundation for democracy, and in particular, the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Travelling through the Scottish Wars of Independence, political and religious feuds and upheavals, we reach the shores of America. This epic voyage reveals surprising and fascinating insights into how the destinies of such far-flung people and places were all tied together in a relentless fight for freedom.

Warriors and Wordsmiths was featured in The Observer on 6 July 2009.

MacDonald-Lewis believes the similarities between the cries of freedom in both documents are a deliberate move by America's founding fathers - half of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were of Scottish ancestry. Robert the Bruce, meanwhile, was the first ruler in Europe to be brought to power by a system recognisable as modern democracy, by "due consent and assent of us all".

Speaking from Oregon, she told the Observer she believed Americans should have been toasting Scotland at their 4 July celebrations yesterday.

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