Demonstrates the continuing importance of the founding fathers of the Western philosophical tradition - all the main thinkers from Thales to the Sophists.
Reviews
"This is one of the richest recent contributions to Presocratic studies, and by far the most exhilarating. It also rests on considerable erudition, for Barnes has taken careful and appreciative account of the work of a vast range of other scholars in the field, even those who have followed quite different paths from his own."-"Cambridge Review "Jonathan Barnes . . . has carried out his large enterprise with scholarly skill, philosophical acuteness, and a degree of brilliant, disciplined imagination that will amaze and delight those of us who were inclined to be skeptical . . . All lovers of the Presocratics will welcome this highly personal, vigorous and stimulating survey of the field from a distinctly philosophical point of view."-"Journal of Philosophy
