This felt like a fairly comprehensive account of the development of philosophy in the west, but it's hard to know how much I was able to absorb.

The book is written in a way that I felt was very scattered. Some sections have an incredible amount of seemingly unrelated detail, such as the relationships between each Pope and their contemporary kings/emperors throughout the period characterized by the power of the Catholic Church.
Each philosopher ends up being described in relation to the ideas before and after their work. I felt that this confuses the timeline and adds a lot of speculation about how the older philosopher may have responded to newer ideas.
The last section feels dated at times with references to current events, but the majority of the book addresses ideas old enough not to have this feeling.

As far as content is concerned, I found the book spent a lot of time on metaphysical theories, most of which seemed to have limited justification. Of course that’s probably more of a commentary on the philosophers than the author.

In general, a more focused version of this book probably would have been closer to what I had personally hoped for. Spending more time was on fewer philosophers would have helped keep them all clear in my head and fully understand the ideas.