Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family....

Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia - three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history....

Death in Florence illuminates one of the defining moments in Western history - the bloody and dramatic story of the battle for the soul of Renaissance Florence....

With Hegel, philosophy became very difficult indeed. His dialectical method produced the most grandiose metaphysical system known to man....

With Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy was dangerous not only for philosophers but for everyone....

Spinoza's system and conclusions have compelling beauty unequaled in the history of philosophy....

After narrowly avoiding a firing squad when he was just twenty-eight years old, Dostoevsky never took things lightly....

Heidegger needed to develop an entire new form of philosophy....

Confucius knew all about life and told us how to behave, but we can't find out precisely what he was up to....

Kierkegaard wasn't really a philosopher in the academic sense....