Alan Coffee is a lecturer in political philosophy in the Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London. His research interests are in social and political philosophy, particularly in the areas of freedom, equality and global justice. His primary focus is on the civic republican idea of freedom as independence from arbitrary rule. He has special interests in Mary Wollstonecraft’s work and in nineteenth century slave narratives as political philosophy. Before returning to academic life he spent twelve years as an investment banker, working for amongst others Merrill Lynch and J. P. Morgan-Chase.