Dana Lee Thomas

Written with the light touch but informed assurance that characterized all the volumes of the Living Biographies series. In the case of this volume though, the irreverence this father-son duo brought to their work had deadly consequences. A newspaper in Uttar Pradesh decried the alleged blasphemy of its portrayal of a certain prophet, in its indignant outrage reprinting its "most atrocious" passages, touching off riots that took eighteen lives.
I read this as a young teenager and found the authors' appreciation for the spiritual longing of the figures they depict with their abhorrence of dogmatism an appealing mix.… (meer)

The book accomplishes what it set out to do, e.g., present an overview of the lives and thinking of many of the worlds great philosophers. Discussed in the book are Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Spencer, Nietzsche, William James, Henri-Louis Bergson, and Santayana. Not so in-depth as to bore the reader with excess details, yet not so superficial as to leave the reader uninformed.… (meer)