“Vivid and illuminating … Gottlieb’s highly readable book can be recommended as an engaging personal introduction to some of our most brilliant moral and intellectual ancestors.”
Thomas Nagel, New York Review of Books

“Gottlieb often makes fun of his philosophers, but gently, as a way of bringing us closer to them, and they emerge as brilliant, vulnerable humans rather than monsters of any kind…a great achievement.”
Michael Wood, The New York Times

“An elegant journey through modern philosophy with a humane, witty and expert guide.”
K. Anthony Appiah, New York University

“Myths get their comeuppance in this well-written and fast-moving book.”
Jonathan Rée, The Guardian

“He wears his learning lightly with an engaging and entirely comprehensible sequence of crystal-clear paragraphs. … His prose is as witty as it is punctilious, peppered with clever, memorable lines.”
​Julian Baggini, Financial Times