From the celebrated British author and historian: a brilliant new book combining historical inquiry and storytelling elan to paint an unprecedentedly vivid portrait of Socrates and the Golden Age of classical Athens.

We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did; in his unwavering commitment to truth and in the example of his own life, he set the standard for all subsequent Western philosophy. And yet, for twenty-five centuries, he has remained an enigma: a man who left no written legacy and about whom everything we know is hearsay. His life spanned...