Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths
by Robin Waterfield
List Price:
Our Price: $6.90
You Save: $21.05 (75%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Robin WaterfieldEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-08
ISBN: 0393065278
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Summary of Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths
A revisionist account of the most famous trial and execution in Western civilization?one with great resonance for American society today.
Socrates? trial and death together form an iconic moment in Western civilization. In 399 BCE, the great philosopher stood before an Athenian jury on serious charges: impiety and ?subverting the young men of the city.? The picture we have of it?created by his immediate followers, Plato and Xenophon, and perpetuated in countless works of literature and art ever since?is of a noble man putting his lips to the poisonous cup of hemlock, sentenced to death in a fit of folly by an ancient Athenian democracy already fighting for its own life. But an icon, an image, is not reality, and time has transmuted so many of the facts into historical fable.Aware of these myths, Robin Waterfield has examined the actual Greek sources and presents here a new Socrates, in which he separates the legend from the man himself. As Waterfield recounts the story, the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens were already enough for a death sentence, but the prosecutors accused him of more. They asserted that Socrates was not just an atheist and the guru of a weird sect but also an elitist who surrounded himself with politically undesirable characters and had mentored those responsible for defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Their claims were not without substance, for Plato and Xenophon, among Socrates? closest companions, had idolized him as students, while Alcibiades, the hawkish and notoriously self-serving general, had brought Athens to the brink of military disaster. In fact, as Waterfield perceptively shows through an engrossing historical narrative, there was a great deal of truth, from an Athenian perspective, in these charges.
The trial was, in part, a response to troubled times?Athens was reeling from a catastrophic war and undergoing turbulent social changes?and Socrates? companions were unfortunately direct representatives of these troubles. Their words and actions, judiciously sifted and placed in proper context, not only serve to portray Socrates as a flesh-and-blood historical figure but also provide a good lens through which to explore both the trial and the general history of the period.
Ultimately, the study of these events and principal figures allows us to finally strip away the veneer that has for so long denied us glimpses of the real Socrates. Why Socrates Died is an illuminating, authoritative account of not only one of the defining periods of Western civilization but also of one of its most defining figures. 4 pages of illustrations
Greece Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Greece Books
The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford Illustrated Histories)Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-05-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.00
Price in other shops:
Gorgias (The World's Classics)by Plato
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1994-12-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $141.34
Roman Lives: A Selection of Eight Lives (Oxford World's Classics)by Plutarch
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-01-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Xerxes Invades Greece (Penguin Epics)by Herodotus
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2006-12-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Guide to Greece, Vol. 1: Central Greeceby Pausanias
Penguin Classics; Published: 1984-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.22
Price in other shops:
A History of My Times (Penguin Classics)by Xenophon
Penguin Group USA; Penguin Classics; Published: 1979-05-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops:
Lost and Found: Heinrich Schliemann and the Gold That Got Awayby Caroline Moorehead
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1997-07-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
The Portable Plato (Portable Library)by Plato
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1977-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics)by Suetonius
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-05-06; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.34
Price in other shops:
Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Smithsonian History of Warfare)by Victor Davis Hanson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-12-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.97
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
City and Soul in Plato's Republicby G. R. F. Ferrari
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2005-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.68
Price in other shops:
Plato: Complete Worksby Plato
Hackett Publishing Co.; Published: 1997-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.00
Price in other shops:
Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilizationby Richard Miles
Viking Adult; Published: 2011-07-21; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.01
Price in other shops:
Socrates Against Athens: Philosophy on Trialby James A. Colaiaco
Routledge; Published: 2001-07-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.00
Price in other shops:
Conversations of Socrates (Penguin Classics)by Xenophon
Penguin Classics; Published: 1990-07-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.47
Price in other shops:
The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Lifeby Bettany Hughes
Knopf; Published: 2011-02-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.50
Price in other shops:
Socrates: A Life Examinedby Luis E. Navia
Prometheus Books; Published: 2007-03-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.52
Price in other shops:
The Death of Socrates (Profiles in History)by Emily Wilson
Harvard University Press; Published: 2007-10-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and ControversiesOxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-12-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.50
Price in other shops:
The Trial of Socratesby I.F. Stone
Anchor; Published: 1989-02-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops: