Reddit reviews The Trial of Socrates

So, what all you lads read this week? I finished this rather crazy book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Trial-Socrates-I-F-Stone/dp/0385260326

I'm a fan of Antony Beevor.

I know, I know, he's an author, not a book. "Stalingrad" and "Berlin" were excellent, imo. I think you can trust whatever he writes.

I really enjoyed I F Stone's "Trial of Socrates."

The lengths Stone went to to write this is almost as fascinating as the book. (if for no other reason than that he can put a paragraph together that doesn't make your eyes glaze over. Same with Beevor.)

Actually, I think Stone's book is my all-time favorite in the genre. If I had a spare copy, I would send it to you!

IIRC I. F. Stone's thesis was that Socrates had actually fomented rebellion. There had been some sort of coup (or attempted coup) and there was speculation that he'd actually been an instigator.

I have no idea at this point whether that's actually plausible given the historical data, but it's interesting to contemplate.

Plato's account obviously lauds Socrates and makes his trial out to be pure persecution of free thought, but we should take that with a grain of salt, right?

There's a decent book that covers Socrates and the impact he had on his contemporaries, The Trial of Socrates. If you're really interested in how he impacted his surroundings, I think reading it will give you some answers.

Answering how much of an impact he would have had without his students is hard to answer, maybe there would have been other people writing about him, but then perhaps they would be seen as students of his as well.

If you have the time I highly recommend you check out this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Trial-Socrates-I-F-Stone/dp/0385260326

It's not long, it's a easy read and I found it fun. It doesn't take an 'anti' stance, he's just putting together the larger picture. He looks at what the primary sources have to say and then puts that into the wider picture of what was happening in Athens (and Greece) at the time. I'm no expert on Greek history or philosophy, though I do love reading about both and I found it assessable and insightful.

I started to reread it two years ago and left the damn thing at an airport bar. Hopefully someone found it and gave it a read. The only way a book should go.