This is a big book.

I didn't expect it to be a fun book but Bertrand Russell's comments at times cracked me up. If there was ever to be a Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy, the chapters on Ancient Philosophy, Catholic Philosophy and Modern Philosophy and a lot of European History could be taken straight from this book. There were times when I was sure that Douglas Adams took his inspiration for the "The Book" from Russel's writing. The tone was very similar. Very often Russell goes on a tangent to tell you how peculiar a philosopher was before demolishing his work. I must also say that the reader of the Audible book is excellent and made the work very entertaining - only Peter Jones could have read it better.

This book also reminded me that before the internet and word processors this kind of book was very important. It is almost as if he published his hand written notes on the philosophy and allowed us read them in a similar way to the opinionated history book Sapiens.

I think if I had been given this book at around 14, I would have read it from cover to cover and would have gained a better grasp of European history and the history of Western thought from the ancient Greeks to the Second World War and especially how philosophy and politics derive from the, very often, erroneous ideas of those who came before.

The Audible recording is 38 hours and I must say that I enjoyed most of it and would definitely listen to it again, though possibly more carefully and one chapter at a time instead of ploughing through it. There are concepts which he carefully introduces at the start that he comes back to over and over again and if you skip over them you may struggle or get frustrated when he repeatedly mentions them later. It is much more difficult to wind back in the audio version especially as I listened to most of it while walking.

I definitely feel better educated for reading this book and wish I had read it earlier.