Since Aristotle s famous declaration that the speculative sciences originated with the emergence of a leisure class, it has been accepted as a truism that intellectual activity requires political stability and leisure in order to flourish. Paradoxically, however, some of the most powerful and influential contributions to Western intellectual culture have been produced in conditions that were adverse indeed hostile to intellectual activity. Examples include Socrates' stirring defense of the examined life before a hostile Athenian jury, Boethius writing The Consolation of Philosophy under the...