Essentially a compilation of "XX philosophy: A very short introduction" into one book。 The scope is extremely impressive， covering ancient Greek to modern times， with added bonuses of Eastern and African philosophy。 The author is also very helpful in setting up the cultural contexts which gave birth to the ideas， as well as in explaining and clarifying terms which may be confusing to readers。 As a survey of philosophy， I think it is inevitable that space is an issue， but devoting only 6-7 pages Essentially a compilation of "XX philosophy: A very short introduction" into one book。 The scope is extremely impressive， covering ancient Greek to modern times， with added bonuses of Eastern and African philosophy。 The author is also very helpful in setting up the cultural contexts which gave birth to the ideas， as well as in explaining and clarifying terms which may be confusing to readers。 As a survey of philosophy， I think it is inevitable that space is an issue， but devoting only 6-7 pages to discuss Kant， Marx or Nietzsche is scratching the surface too thin。。。 So for me， this book serves more like a （secular） philosophy curriculum outline / bibliography for further study than anything else; one cannot even begin to have any meaningful conversation with friends with so little covered for each character。 Finally， the author's biases and prejudice against religion （particularly Christianity） really shows， which is unfortunately for a work like this。 This bias inevitably affects how he interprets certain ideas and historical events （for example he spends disproportionately more air time in personally refuting the Medieval thinkers which he doesn't do in other sections）， as well as his selection of what to include or not。 。。。more