Paul Strathern

Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia-three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man's perceptions-and the course of Western history. In 1502, Italy was riven by conflict, with the city of Florence...

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. By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent) they...

With Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy was dangerous not only for philosophers but for everyone. Nietzsche ended up going mad, but his ideas presaged a collective madness that had horrific consequences in Europe in the early 1900s. Though his philosophy is more one of aphorisms and insights than a system, it is brilliant, persuasive, and incisive. His major concept is the will to power, which he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Christianity...

A sweeping and magisterial four-hundred-year history of both the city and the people who gave birth to the Renaissance. Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception...

In Confucius in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Confucius's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.

René Descartes spent most of his childhood in solitude, a situation that also came to characterize his adult life. Fortunately, these countless lonely hours helped Descartes produce the declaration that changed all philosophy: “I think, therefore I am.” Eventually convincing himself to doubt and disregard sensory knowledge, Descartes found he could prove his existence through his thoughts. This internal information, he believed, was the true...

Aristotle wrote on everything from the shape of seashells to sterility, from speculations on the nature of the soul to meteorology, poetry, art, and even the interpretation of dreams. Apart from mathematics, he transformed every field of knowledge that he touched. Above all, Aristotle is credited with the founding of logic. When he first divided human knowledge into separate categories, he enabled our understanding of the world to develop in a systematic...

By the end of his life, D. H. Lawrence had despaired of Western civilization, which he felt had corrupted and weakened the human spirit. He believed that we had somehow lost touch with our instinctual being and no longer responded to the "true voice" of our blood. His works were an attempt to revive a life we have lost, and in them it is possible to glimpse something vivid, something now damaged, that we nonetheless recognize in ourselves. This is...

In García Márquez in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of García Márquez 's life and ideas, and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes selections from García Márquez 's writings; a list of his chief works in English translation; a chronology of García Márquez 's life and times; and recommended reading for those who wish to push further....

In Sartre in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Sartre's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.