Greeks developed intellectual habits, chief among them the use of questioning as the basis of knowing, which laid the groundwork for Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and for how we reason today'
NEW YORKER 'Wise, elegant . . . richer and more unusual than [the self-help genre], an exploration of the origins of Western subjectivity'
WASHINGTON POST 'Seductive... a poetic tour of philosophical thought'
SPECTATOR 'Passionate, poetic, and hauntingly beautiful, Adam Nicolson's account of the west's earliest philosophers brings vividly alive the mercantile hustle and bustle of ideas traded and transformed in a web of maritime Greek cities.. In this life-affirming, vital book, those ideas sing with the excitement of a new discovery'
David Stuttard'It's hard not to be dazzled by this book ... No one else writes with the originality, energy and persuasiveness of Adam Nicolson. It's like encountering the Greek sea. It takes your breath away'
Laura Beatty, bestselling author of Lost Property
