Socrates: A Life Worth Living

“What a welcome book! Socrates—relentless in the pursuit of truth, champion of the Socratic method, fearless prisoner of conscience—went willingly to his death upon the verdict of an Athenian jury. Why? He lived almost 2,500 years ago, and yet the questions he raised and the controversies he generated are disputed as heatedly now as they were then. Lehmann weaves into Socrates’s story the details of daily life and politics, historical context, and scenes from the comic stage that bring passages from Plato’s dialogues to life. The resulting animation of philosophy is as imaginative as it is realistic.”
—Debra Nails, professor emerita, Michigan State University, and author of The People of Plato

“A thorough study of the brilliant, timeless, entertainingly abrasive thinker… .
This account is based on judicious use of source material and massive research and further livened throughout by frequent photos or diagrams of major Athenian buildings, sexually suggestive images on artifacts, and even an illustration of a hemlock plant. Women do get rare but occasional mentions.
A vivid, perceptive portrait aimed at spurring readers to take up the quest. (map, notes, note on sources, bibliography, glossary, index).”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

DEVRA LEHMANN is the author of Spinoza- The Outcast Thinker, which won the 2014 National Jewish Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. In her 35 years in the classroom, she has taught preschoolers to sound out monosyllables, high schoolers to read Shakespeare, and adults to parse Talmudic passages. She is now at work on a young adult biography of Augustine of Hippo.

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