Paul Strathern

Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family....

Death in Florence illuminates one of the defining moments in Western history - the bloody and dramatic story of the battle for the soul of Renaissance Florence....

The Republic of Venice was the first great economic, cultural, and naval power of the modern Western world....

The Borgia family have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthless megalomania, avarice, and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. And yet, paradoxically, this family lived when the Renaissance was coming into its full flowering in Italy....

Spinoza's system and conclusions have compelling beauty unequaled in the history of philosophy....

"If we accept Wittgenstein's word for it," Paul Strathern writes, "he is the last philosopher....

During his lifetime, Jean-Paul Sartre enjoyed unprecedented popularity for a philosopher, due partly to his role as a spokesman for existentialism at the opportune moment....

Augustine's struggles with sex and a domineering mother, followed by his spiritual crisis and conversion to Christianity ultimately led him to his major contribution to philosophy....

An original, illuminating history of the northern European Renaissance in art, science, and philosophy, which often rivaled its Italian counterpart.

Confucius knew all about life and told us how to behave, but we can't find out precisely what he was up to....

Borges in 90 Minutes offers an expert account of Borges' life and ideas and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world....

David Hume reduced philosophy to ruins: he denied the existence of everything, except our actual perceptions themselves....

Heidegger needed to develop an entire new form of philosophy....

Schopenhauer, the "philosopher of pessimism", makes it very plain that he regards the world and our life in it as a bad joke....

Aristotle wrote on everything from the shape of seashells to sterility, from speculations on the nature of the soul to meteorology, poetry, art, and even the interpretation of dreams....

With Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy was dangerous not only for philosophers but for everyone....

Kierkegaard wasn't really a philosopher in the academic sense....

We see our age as the greatest in human history, filled with seemingly unending originality. Yet such dynamism is not a necessary characteristic of great eras....

A handsome recluse, plagued by indecision and hypochondria, Kafka nonetheless exhibited an extraordinary strength....

From a young age, James Joyce showed a precocious and original intellect and a confidence in his own artistic destiny....