Socrates: A Man for Our Times PDF

Paul Johnson arbeitet als Historiker, Journalist und Autor. Er wurde an der Stonyhurst School in Clitheroe, Lancashire und am Magdalen College, Oxford, ausgebildet und erlangte in den 1950er Jahren als Journalist, der für das Magazin New Statesman schrieb und später herausgab, Bekanntheit. Er hat auch für führende Zeitungen und Zeitschriften in Großbritannien, den USA und Europa geschrieben. Paul Johnson hat über 40 Bücher veröffentlicht, darunter A History of Christentum (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) und Art: A New History (2003) sowie Biografien von Elizabeth I (1974), Napoleon (2002), George Washington (2005) und Papst Johannes Paul II. (1982).

Socrates: A Man for Our Times pdf von Paul Johnson

A brilliant portrait of the Greek philosopher who personified philosophy. Socrates was undeniably one of the greatest thinkers of all time, yet he wrote nothing. Throughout his life, and indeed until his very last moment alive, Socrates fully embodied his philosophy in thought and deed. It is through the story of his life that we can fully grasp his powerful actions and ideas. In his highly acclaimed style, historian Paul Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of a homely but charismatic middle-class man living in Athens in the fifth century b.c., and how what this man thought still shapes the way we decide how to act, and how we fathom the notion of body and soul. Johnson provides a compelling picture of the city and 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.