About this item
"Spectacular . . . A delight to read." - The Wall Street Journal From bestselling biographer and historian Paul Johnson, a brilliant portrait of Socrates, the founding father of philosophyIn his highly acclaimed style, historian Paul Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of Socrates, who is often hailed as the most important thinker of all time. Johnson provides a compelling picture of Athens in the fifth century BCE, and of the people Socrates reciprocally delighted in, as well as many enlightening and intimate analyses of specific aspects of his personality. Enchantingly portraying "the sheer power of Socrates's mind, and its unique combination of steel, subtlety, and frivolity," Paul Johnson captures the vast and intriguing life of a man who did nothing less than supply the basic apparatus of the human mind.
About the Author
Paul Johnson works as a historian, journalist and author. He was educated at Stonyhurst School in Clitheroe, Lancashire and Magdalen College, Oxford, and first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for, and later editing, the New Statesman magazine. He has also written for leading newspapers and magazines in Britain, the US and Europe. Paul Johnson has published over 40 books including A History of Christianity (1979) , A History of the English People (1987) , Intellectuals (1988) , The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815 - 1830 (1991) , Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (1999) , A History of the American People (2000) , A History of the Jews (2001) and Art: A New History (2003) as well as biographies of Elizabeth I (1974) , Napoleon (2002) , George Washington (2005) and Pope John Paul II (1982) .
