'It is I think the most radical Book that has been written in these late centuries . . . and will give pleasure and displeasure, one may expect, to almost all classes of persons.' …
Edmund Burke was the dominant political thinker of the last quarter of the eighteenth century in England. His reputation depends less on his role as a practising politician than on …
The first philosophers paved the way for the work of Plato and Aristotle - and hence for the whole of Western thought. Aristotle said that philosophy begins with wonder, and the …
'He was atrocious in his brutality, but his lechery was kept hidden... In the end, he erupted into an orgy of crime and ignominy alike' Such is Tacitus' obituary of Tiberius, and …
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731 AD) is Bede's most famous work. As well as providing the authoritative Colgrave translation of the Ecclesiastical History, …
'The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength.' …
"'Dear holy cleric,' they said, 'these old warriors tell you no more than a third of their stories, because their memories are faulty. Have these stories written down on poets' …
'The degradations, the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery, are more than I can describe.' Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in the American South and went on to write one of …
'no one else in our times has attempted to write a universal history' Polybius' ambitious goal was to describe how Rome conquered the Mediterranean world in less than fifty-three …
Lycurgus, Pericles, Solon, Nicias, Themistocles, Alcibiades, Cimon, Agesilaus, Alexander `I treat the narrative of the Lives as a kind of mirror...The experience is like nothing so …
