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 enlarge | Author: I.f. Stone
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.51
You Save: $14.44 (97%)
New (43) Used (112) from $0.51
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 133560
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0385260326
Dewey Decimal Number: 183.2
EAN: 9780385260329
ASIN: 0385260326
Publication Date: February 27, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear on book from reading, spine creases, wear on binding and pages.
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| Customer Reviews:
See for yourself . . . May 15, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you have any interest in ancient Athens and/or Socrates, read this book. Some earlier reviews question I.F. Stone's motives & politics, but
this book reflects a very favorable view of democracy & free speech.
a very fun, if anachronisitic, take on Socrates and Athens April 16, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Late in life, Stone focused his mind on one of his great early passions, Greek philosophy (he was particularly interested in the pre-Socratics). It was supposed to be the start of a history of the notion of freedom, but he got too obsessed with Socrates, right at the beginning of the great debate on democracy. The result is this fine book.
Reading this was a joy for me, in that I studied all of it way back in college as a classics major. Stone approaches it with the same kind of energy he displayed as a journalist: he went directly to the primary sources himself, trusting no one (i.e. the staid consensus of the professionals of knowledge, academics), and came up with a novel interpretation about the reason why the Athenians - at the end of the earliest experiments with democracy - executed a man for his opinions. It is a great question and the inquiry is a wonderful intellectual adventure.
While the reviewers here have rightly emphasized Stone's critical view of Socrates - his aristocratic bias and scorn for rule by the common man - I think that that is missing the principal point of the book, which is that the Athenians felt Socrates threatened their "national security" with his dissenting ideas. In my reading, Stone's view of Socrates is less important than his condemnation of an entire society for rubbing out a man with a contrary opinion. THat means that, while Stone may disagree with Socrates' philosophy, he admires him for voicing them as a dissenter (i.e. like Stone himself) and accepting the consequences within a frightened and narrowing society (the recently defeated Athens in the Pelopenesian War). Thus, Stone's purpose is less to make a philosophical argument than a political point.
Stone has gone to all the classical sources, which form an intricate web that has been synthesized and then interpreted by great minds and studied in schools ever since. His reading is novel regarding national security, and while I do not believe it holds up in historical context, it is a worthy view to explore. You get the context of the society, a lot of history and literary criticism, and Stone's distinctive moral voice. It is a feast.
Warmly recommended.
 Miraculous! It's makes Socrates comprehensible September 6, 2006
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
For those survivors of having been force fed The Republic or The Death of Socrates, this book is welcome relief. It actually makes you realize why someone would be bothered to do anything other than yawn at Socratic discussion or ancient philosophy.
It turns out that after having spent the bulk of his entire life as a journalist and American Jiminy Cricket, I.F. Stone turned in retirement to his real passion, classical literature. In this way, this final effort reminds one of Mark Twain's Joan of Arc wherein Twain turned his attentions to a life long interest and like Stone managed to -- in so doing -- give the historical character a more modern accessibility.
In Socrates' case, Stone takes us to ancient Athens. As we do by trudging through the classical literature itself, we see a Socrates so nihilistic that he's willing to disagree with himself in order to destroy someone else's point.
In the process of doing so, Socrates -- as consistently reported by his students -- dismisses democracy, adjudges his fellow men unanimously ignorant and extolls principles that would in a later day be called what they were: fascism.
And in the end we see a Socrates so penultimately nihilistic that he's willing to commit death by judicial suicide in a way that would become eerily prescient of the modern Kevorkian trials wherein a gadfly endeavered that his sacrifice would thereby sanctify a lost cause.
Tour de Force June 2, 2006
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
It may be more about mid-to-late twentieth century America than Ancient Greece, but the great muckraker I. F. Stone's swan song resonates powerfully now. It will probably continue to resonate, for the challenge it presents doesn't go away. On one side is Socrates, a character about whom we know every little except what we get from Plato--who is the real player. Plato is for eternal verities, for abstractions that stand beyond history and humanity.
What exactly these timeless truths are isn't clear, but wise men supposedly understand them and will rule the rest of us accordingly. So if we know what's good for us, we should submit to their rule. Plato's prose is all aristocratic elegance, but the bone-chilling horrors of absolute tyranny peek from behind his classical mask. On the other side is Athenian democracy, messy and frail and definitely not elegant.
Think German philosopher Heidegger against the floundering Weimer Republic. True, Plato, unlike Heidegger, didn't claim the great ideal was embodied in a certain man. He did, however, argue for strong men instead of the vagaries of political give and take. And the Weimer Republic didn't drive Heidegger to drink hemlock, but given the consequences of the mindset he fostered, liberal-libertarian thinkers should have opposed him with all their might. Heidegger survived his heroes the Nazis to continue spinning his absurd abstractions. Socrates, old and sick, preferred to make a martyr of himself.
We're never entirely free of the myth of wise men that know it all and will take the country to salvation. Trust us, they say, even in the world's largest democracy. Don't worry, trust us and give us the ring of unlimited power. Stone knew whereof he spoke. Yes, he could have known better, but at the end of his life he had a pretty good sense of what the grand Platonic ideal means in reality--power-grabbing charlatans and the pundits that enable them.
This is one of those rare books that manage to both entertain and enlighten.
Perilous Times February 27, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
After retiring at age 70 as a journalist, Stone took up a new avocation, learning ancient Greek in order to study the originals. His topic was the origins of democracy, and in part, how icons like Plato and Socrates have falsely been given credit for fostering these ideals. In this well reasoned book, Stone presents the case against Socrates - not to argue that his death was justified, but rather to show that he was convicted for the political reason that he supported an anti-democratic oligarchy: "The paradox and shame in the trial of Socrates is that a city famous for free speech prosecuted a philosopher guilty of no other crime than exercising it. To invoke the memory of our own American lapses, Athens had no Alien and Sedition Laws, Athens had no little Iron Curtain like the McCarran-Walter immigration act to bar visitors with suspect ideas.... Athens was un-Athenian, frightened by the three political earthquakes when the democracy was overthrown in 411 and 404 BC and then threatened again in 401. These events help to explain the prosecution of Socrates, but they do not justify it."
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