The Trial of Socrates

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988. In a feat of investigative journalism and classical scholarship, a veteran Washington correspondent has gone back almost twenty-five hundred years to throw fresh light on the most famous free speech case of all time - the trial of Socrates. The book shows how profound were the differences between democratic Athens and the philosopher whose martyrdom has made him - thanks to Plato's genius - a secular saint of western civilization. Stone brings new insights to bear on a most important question which is : How could Athen's, the first citadel of free speech in human history, come to violate its own basic principles by condemning a philosopher to death because of his non-conformist teaching? This book tries to unravel some of the mysteries behind the trial. In filling out the whole story, Stone ranges far and wide over Roman as well as Greek civilization... Eighteen chapters, Epilogue, Notes and Index. Stone was a philosophy major in his youth at the University of Pennsylvania and returned to philosophic and classical studies in his latter years. . A bright book in an illustrated price-intact dust jacket. The jacket illustration is from a painting 'The Death of Socrates' by Jacques Louis David.. First Edition Fifth Printing. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good.