Half Hours with the Best Thinkers collects in one concise volume the most important ideas and thoughts of the world's greatest minds of the last twenty centuries. Many of the beliefs and concepts included in this book have radically altered the way we think and the way we live, and continue to form the basis for who we look at and live in this world. The ideas of Confucius, as represented in his Analects, continues to guide the lives of billions of Asians even after more than two thousand years. The works of Plato and Aristotle form the basis of all Western political and ethical thought. Saint Augustine in The City of God was the major religious thinker of the Catholic Church and continues to influence the life of every Christian. Machiavelli in his groundbreaking treatise, the Prince, changed politics forever--adversely in the opinion of many, as the sinister word 'Machiavellian' reflects--with his realistic take on how to rule. Today it remains the blueprint for every politician's rise to power. The ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson remain the foundation fo constitutional govenrment and have fostered countless revolutions. And in the sphere of science, the ideas of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud have thoroughly altered how mankind perceives itself. Their groundbreaking thoughts on human evolution and the human mind, respectively, continue to cause controversy today. Half Hours with the Best Thinkers traces the development of the human mind and reflects mankind's continuing effort to understand the world and how to live in it. These are the ideas that we live by, in the words of the great minds who formulated them.
