History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell > Reviews > One of the Best

Author's product rating:   

Degree of Information	Medium
How interesting was the book?	Interesting because I'm interested in that subject
How useful was it?	Pretty useful
Would you read it again?	Yes
Value for money	Good

Advantages:	An excellent overview, great for general reference .
Disadvantages:	Can be somewhat lacking in detail and a little opinionated .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

In his famous "History of Western Philosophy," Bertrand Russell aimed not only to give a comprehensive overview of the history of ideas, from the Pre-Socratics to the beginning of the twentieth century, but to examine the connections between the ideas of the philosophers and the society and culture in which they were writing. The resulting tome is fascinating, and reasonably readable for a work on philosophy, but suffers, as Russell admits, from a certain lack of detail, inevitable when a single author takes such a wide subject matter.

The book is structured simply enough, moving in chronological order and split up into three parts, covering classical philosophy, the rise of the church and the scholastics in the middle ages (Russell makes a brief diversion into history here, but it is helpful in putting the scholastic philosophy into context, and short enough to avoid disrupting the flow of the book), and modern philosophy from Descartes onwards. Within these divisions, it is generally a case of one chapter per author, although there are exceptions - Aristotle, for example, has four.

The main flaw of the book is that every chapter seems a little abrupt - we are given a brief overview of the thinker's ideas, but no detailed discussion. Obviously Russell did not want the book to be a work of reference - the flow of the writing indicates cover-to-cover, but unfortunately this is how it works best, and a little more detail would have been helpful. The question of balance between history and philosophy also arises - if Russell really intended the book to be an account of the history, rather than explaining the ideas, he could have done with a little more detail on that side of things - he aimed for the best of both worlds, and fell a little short.

The only other minor issue is Russell's willingness to let his own opinions flavour the work, passing judgement on thinkers from Aristotle to Aquinas to Nietzche. I am undecided on whether this detracts from the book or enhances it - you'll have to make up your own mind on that one.

These criticisms aside, the book is wonderfully readable and makes an excellent first port of call for reference purposes. It also gives anyone who is just beginning to read philosophy a comprehensible overview of the subject (up until the twentieth century, at least), although I would recommend that absolute beginners go for an introductory work such as Simon Blackburn's "Think" first.