This is an entertaining book with lots of stories, history and general interest. It's a weekend read, with a good story type pace. If you enjoy it, also try Butterfly Economics by Paul Ormerod that really picks-up where this book ends.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I literally couldn't put it down! It was very well-researched, fast-moving, and loaded with interesting anecdotes, some funny and some sad. "Mendeleyev's Dream" covers two millenia of the development of chemistry from art to science, including the discovery and characterization of some of the more colourful elements on the periodic table. I found one or two minor technical errors, but in all I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in science and history both.

M.

Once again, Paul Strathern has produced a succinct, entertaining, highly readable overview of a philosophical figure. The "in 90 Minutes" will not tell you everything you need to know about an individual, but you will pick up a great introduction. I have read about ten of the books in the series, and I enjoyed them all. Some of Strathern's conclusions strike me as logically suspect, but an intelligent reader will not rely solely on his opinions anyway. "Schopenhauer in 90 Minutes" will give you a sense of who the man was, what he thought, and how he fits into the overall scope of Western philosophy. Reading the book is the equivalent of attending a great lecture: it offers some information, throws out some ideas for consideration, and leaves you thinking after you have stumbled out of class into the blare of yellow sun.

I. Spinoza is a strange and interesting philosopher. His life sticks out in the history of philosophy. He not only philosophized, but he lived his philosophy. Q.E.D.

II. After an assassination attempt, Spinoza managed to get excommunicated from the Amsterdam synagogue in 1656. Q.E.D.

III. Spinoza turned down prestigious university posts and instead made his living grinding glass lenses. At the same time he composed a classic metaphysical system that he also applied to a political system. Q.E.D.

IV. Spinoza was one of the first philosophers to claim that the aim of the state is individual freedom. Q.E.D.

V. Though Spinoza's metaphysics belong to a different time, it is an example of how a theory of existence can be applied to a manner of living and being. Q.E.D.

VI. This book provides a good but very short introduction to the life and philosophy of one of the most interesting philosophers in the history books. Q.E.D.

VII. Spinoza managed to live a very humble life and still attain fame and recognition in his own time. He corresponded with Huygens, Newton, Leibniz, and other eminent people of the 17th century. Q.E.D.

VIII. Spinoza's works were so controversial they were either not published during his lifetime or published anonymously shortly after his death. Q.E.D.

IX. Spinoza's metaphysical system was based on pantheism, which posited that everything and everyone is God, so that if you hurt another you hurt yourself. There are corollaries to the modern Gaia hypothesis in this. Q.E.D.

X. This book will leave you wanting to know more about Spinoza and why he wrote in a strange numbered aphoristic manner. It can be read in a single reading and will acquaint you with Spinoza and why he is considered important. Q.E.D.

XI. Read this book, then move onto more thorough studies if it catches your interest. Q.E.D.

I wrote a review about this book but apparently you only display positive ones. How sad. I have purchased a number of products from Amazon,often using the reviews as a guide. I will know better next time(if there is a next time).

Strathern has done a wonderful, a masterful, job in selecting the words of Aristotle himself that illuminate the mind and intent of this great thinker. What keeps this book from a 5 star rating is Strathern's postmodern axe that he annoyingly grinds via Thomas Kuhn and Nietzsche.

Strathern's book on Aristotle is a great little book. He manages to capture the main elements of Aristotle's work in just a few pages and adds personal information about Aristotle's life and times, which brings the book to life. For someone who doesn't have much time to read philosophy but who wants to learn something about Aristotle, this book is a great introduction.

The very notion that one could get something called "Heidegger" in 90 minutes is profoundly ridiculous. As any one who has studied Heidegger for (apparently) more than 90 minutes can tell you, Heidegger's thought is extraordinarily complex, and often impenetrable even to the seasoned student of philosophy. More to the point, Heidegger himself is famous for railing against the superficial "chatter" of the industry of letters; yet few philosophers (aside from Nietzsche perhaps) have been subjected to as much useless chatter as has been Heidegger.

My advice - dispense with the "industry" of philosophy altogether, and especially its pathetic popularized forms. If you're not up to trying to read Heidegger (or any philosopher, dead or alive) himself, then just stay out of philosophy altogether.

It would be easy to look down on any book that offers to inform someone about Heidegger in "90 Minutes," yet Paul Strathern's book provides some good perspective on a philosopher hailed by some as the greatest of the twentieth century. As a former philosophy student who spent a semester on Heidegger's supposed masterpiece Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), I do not share that assessment of Heidegger. Strathern rightly raises the fundamental question whether the jargon or verbiage of Heidegger is meaningful at all (p. 33). My own personal conclusion matches that of the psychologist Jung who referred to Heidegger as the "master of complicated banalities" (p. 75). Only in a nihilistic world that has lost all faith in logical and clear thinking as a way to the truth can the absurd verbiage of Heidegger be hailed as a philosophical advance.

Strathern also rightly raises the active and eager Nazism of Heidegger in the thirties that was indeed related to his philosophical ideas (p.62), although Strathern chivalrously tries to salvage the pure core of Heidegger's ideas from Nazi affinity. Finally, Strathern does not shrink back from recounting the failure of integrity and character seen in Heidegger's turning his back on his Jewish philosophical mentor Husserl during the Nazi era (p. 60) and from recounting the deception involved in Heidegger's lengthy adulterous relation with his much younger student Hannah Arendt (pp. 35-40).

The author has attempted to write a short biography and a short introduction to one of the last century's most significant (and difficult) philosophers. I have a Master's in Philosophy and a Doctorate in another unrelated field, and read parts of Heidegger's Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) during a course in Sein und Zeit while in grad school.

Let me begin by saying any attempt to condense Heidegger's life and thought into 90 minutes is a cross between desperation and ridiculousness (someone like Woody Allen might say that St Peter would use it as a test to see who got into Philosopher's Heaven). I remember that trying to read three pages (sometimes three sentences) of Being and Time in 90 minutes was like speed-reading, and I still consider reading any part of Sein und Zeit to be a superb exercise for developing mid-term memory and cognition. To paraphrase Boswell, the miracle about "Heidegger in 90 Minutes" is not that it's done well, but that someone tried to do it at all.

Well, all that aside, I suppose this is as good an attempt as any, but don't get your expectations up. Strathern is heavy on the dark side of Heidegger's life (his Naziism, his ethical derelictions, his occasional philosophical and personal ridiculousness) but light on the good side of Heidegger (I don't think you will be able to impress a knowledgeable person with your knowledge of Heidegger by reading this book, if the subject should come up in a bar). He gives a reasonably good critique of Heidegger's thought and he focuses reasonably well on Heidegger's emphasis on Being as philosophy's major raison d'etre.

In summary, I think it's well worth the 90 minutes as an introduction, but don't plan on using it to write any essays for your philosophy class. Check out the internet, any good summary book of German philosophy, and the recent autobiography by R. Safranski. Make sure your pencils are sharp and your erasers plentiful. Bring a sense of humor and don't drive while listening to the audiotape (you won't fall asleep, but you won't pay attention to your driving, either).

If you want to read about Turing and the origins of computing on the level and in the style of your Sunday newspaper, this is your book (especially if that Sunday newspaper of yours comes in tabloid format). Otherwise, go for something more intelligent, like A. Hodges, Davies or Copeland.

This book gives a short overview over the life of Alan Turing, though it does not go as deep into detail as Douglas Hofstaedter does - and that was just one article in his Metamagicum collection! But if you don't already have Hofstaedter on your bookshelf, you might as well buy this book.

Unfortunately, the mathematical and technical stuff in the book are only described very vaguely - I did not understand how the Enigma code was cracked, or how the proofs concerning computability worked. I am not quite sure whether the author understood what he was writing about.

What? You have never heard of Alan Turing? You don't deserve tolive! Quick, buy this book (which [is inexpensive]) and learn everything about computer history before uncle Gabriel discover it and pull your ear lobes! This book shows the computer history, beginning from abacus and obviously focuses at Alan Turing and his most important inventions for computing history, the Colossus and the ENIAC. What? You have never heard of ENIAC? Promise to us: come back here in Hardware Secrets only after you have finished reading this book, ok?

Strathern's book simply reproduces the ignorant prejudices against Hegel that have bedevilled Anglo-American philosophy. Who should read this book- anyone who wants to make a few dismissive remarks about Hegel in order to give the appearance of learning at a cocktail party. Who should not read this book- anyone who might want to learn something from Hegel.

This is a witty account and overview of the life and works of Hegel, a challenge for anyone who thought Kant was difficult. The book keeps its promise to tell you everything it can about Hegel in 90 minutes -- the problem is just that you can't learn all that much about Hegel in just 90 minutes.

Strathern is a master at this kind of work, which mixes biography, critical analysis, historical context and humor all in a concise, informative & entertaining package. He lists a time line for the philosopher, his place in world/philosophic history & a selection of works for furthur reading. This series of books by Strathern is a wonderful course in Philosophy 101 without ever having to go to college, all presented in plain, easy to understand English without being bogged down with philosophy's often confusing vernacular.

Well, Strathern is certainly entertaining, if not informative. He gives us the dirt on each philosopher, tells us who was overweight, cheap, pushed people around, etc. This would be great if we were reading about movie stars or politicians but I bought these books in order to understand something about what these philosophers thought. He does reserve a few pages at the end of each volume to tells us one or two of their ideas and gives us a handful of quotes. A total waste of money unless you hate your philosophy classes so much that you want to hear how awful the personal lives of the philosophers were. A new low in publishing.

Paul Strathern's concise overview of St Augustine's life, thought, and influence upon the world will be an invaluable introduction for anyone seeking to begin a study of the man whose doctrines and aspirations changed the face of Christendom. Strathern sets the stage by discussing some of the various philosophies prevalent in the Roman world during St Augustine's time and constructs a quick run-over of Augustine's battle with sin, struggle with the problem of Evil, and final journey to truth. Augustine's epic and exhaustive conflicts with heresy in order to edify and preserve the tenets of Catholic doctrine will be found here as well. Finally, Strathern closes this sharp, to the point work, with a succinct survey of some of the later Christian philosophers up until St Thomas Aquinas and the downfall of the Platonist tradition. This work serves its purpose well; even average readers will be finished and find much useful information at their leisure in at the least thirty minutes.

Strathern is a master at this kind of work, which mixes biography, critical analysis, historical context and humor all in a concise, informative & entertaining package. He lists a time line for the philosopher, his place in world/philosophic history & a selection of works for furthur reading. This series of books by Strathern is a wonderful course in Philosophy 101 without ever having to go to college, all presented in plain, easy to understand English without being bogged down with philosophy's often confusing vernacular. If you are expecting an in-depth review or complete analysis of the philosopher's life & work, read another book. This is meant to be a quick, concise overview & that's just what it provides.

Strathern's books appeal to two main types of readers: (1) Curious newbies who would like to dip their feet in philosophy and/or science; and (2) Lazy intellectuals who want to learn everything about everything without doing any real work. Either group will be ill-served by this book, which treats important ideas in a smug and cursory manner. The best introduction to Nietzsche is probably "The Gay Science", by Nietzsche himself. He's a much more powerful, disturbing, and beautiful writer than Strathern would have you believe.

This is really not a good book if you are really interested in what Nietzsche was all about. If you are trying to throw together a paper that needs a bunch of quotes, however...

I wanted an idea of what I was getting myself into before I clawed my way thru "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and this was just the book to get my attention. Some of my favorite quotes by Nietzsche aren't included, but they really aren't that important for achieving a basic understanding.

If you are really into philosophy, you probably aren't buying the "90 Minute" books. If you are doing graduate level work, you'd better not be in the "90 Minute" books. If you're taking philosophy at a community college just because you like taking classes, this book may save you a lot of time.

I liked it, I still use it, but I don't rely on it!

Strathern's book on Nietzsche provides a nice, easily readable summary of Nietzsche's life and work. Much of the book is devoted to his personal life, which brings the man to life. But his main philosophical ideas are also covered. Strathern also shows how Nietzsche's work fits into the bigger picture of philosophy. It is a great read for someone who wants to learn the basics of Nietzsche but who doesn't have much time.