The third in the Brush up your Classics series, this book contains a range of ideas in a form which is intended to be accessible and entertaining. From philosophy to psychology, politics to economics, religion to inspiration, it sets out provide an enlightened review of the great thoughts and their creators. It elucidates the thoughts, theories and declarations that have defined and developed the core of Western civilization over the millennia, from the classics through the Renaissance to the information revolution. The book progresses through the classical thinkers: Archimedes, Plato and St Augustine to Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau and Kant, to Nietzche, Einstein and Chomsky to McCluhan, Derrida and Lacan, translating the most significant -isms and -ologies into clear stories.