An innovative and insightful exploration of the passionate early life of Socrates and the influences that led him to become the first and greatest of philosophers
Armand D’Angour is an Associate Professor of Classics at Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Jesus College, Oxford. Author of The Greeks and the New (2011), an investigation into ancient Greek attitudes to novelty, he has written widely about Greek and Latin poetry, music and literature, and was commissioned to compose odes in ancient Greek for the Olympic Games in Athens (2004) and London (2012). He was trained as a pianist and cellist as well as a classicist, and has recently reconstructed ancient Greek music from original documents on stone and papyrus.
Sympathetic and irreverent … A demythologised Socrates is revealed,
not so much debunked as rendered newly human … All this is done in
prose of easy elegance and authority … Socrates is one of the very
few philosophers whose thoughts on love are worth reading
*Daily Telegraph*
In this brilliant study, Armand D’Angour refocuses the works of
Socrates the Philosopher by looking afresh at the life of Socrates
the Man. In doing so, he provides new insights not just into
Socrates but into ancient Greek thinking as a whole
*Peter Frankopan, author of 'The Silk Roads'*
Write the name Aspasia on your hearts! History, as told by men, has
often erased the role of women. Our new champion Armand D’Angour
has pieced together the evidence – that a woman of great
intellectual powers helped lay the foundations of Western
philosophy. This is a delicious and exhilarating piece of serious
scholarship
*Helena Kennedy*
D’Angour sets about his task with admirable imagination, even a
touch of literary flair ... Highly readable
*The Times*
A terrific read
*Literary Review*
A fascinating and revelatory book. A penetrating combination of
tremendous scholarship, imagination and sympathetic
understanding
*William Boyd*
A learned, agile and slickly written book … [D’Angour] offers an
erudite guide to the intellectual culture of the time … [I]
couldn’t help admiring his grasp of the material and his ability to
communicate it compactly
*Guardian*
Who was Socrates? D’Angour guesses that the majority of people who
know something about him will answer that Socrates was ‘a thinker,
wise man, or philosopher of ancient Greece.’ If your answer was
along these lines, then you need to pick up this book … Not only
clearly well-researched, but it is also enjoyable to read
*All About History*
A book that succeeds brilliantly in achieving something that I had
always assumed was impossible: providing a historically grounded
portrait of the man Socrates may actually have been. Not merely
eye-opening, it is thrilling and moving
*Tom Holland*
Armand D’Angour’s new readings of Plato’s dialogues bring a new
Athenian world to life … Plausible and beautifully written
*Josephine Quinn*
Who was Socrates? Surprising insights abound in Armand D’Angour’s
new, even radical, biography of the brilliantly eccentric, earthy,
and brave provocateur-philosopher. Socrates in Love is deeply
thoughtful and delightfully written
*Adrienne Mayor, author of 'Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and
Ancient Dreams of Technology'*
The most nourishing book I have read this year
*praise for The Greeks and the New, Spectator: Book of the Year
Selection*
A fantastic, engaging book … Not to be missed
*praise for The Greeks and the New, Bryn Mawr Classical Review*
The book is well-written and fun to read—it has itself some of the
gleam and glamour of the new, and I expect that its readers will
give it kleos
*praise for The Greeks and the New, Classical Journal Online*
Engaging and aptly original study
*praise for The Greeks and the New, Times Literary Supplement*
A learned, agile and slickly written book … D’Angour offers an
erudite guide to the intellectual culture of the time … I couldn’t
help admiring his grasp of the material and his ability to
communicate it compactly
*Guardian*
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