La vida privada y pública de Sócrates

Published in 1940 and considered a masterpiece, The Private and Public Life of Socrates established René Kraus as an exceptional biographer. It is no easy task to immerse the modern reader in classical Athens from the very first page and to relive, with stunning realism, the glorious days of the Age of Pericles and the dramatic years of the Peloponnesian Wars, civil war, and decline. In the midst of those splendors and tumult stands the figure of Socrates, a grumpy man, with a deformed body, but endowed with great moral virtues and enormous power of conviction in a society devoted entirely to the cult of beauty. The irresistible influence he exerted over the youth of his time would end up condemning him to death. René Kraus makes priceless descriptions of the philosopher, of some of his famous contemporaries and of the environment of the city and the time, underlining the thesis that underlies this work: that exceptional beings, even when they are misunderstood and mistreated in life, end up imposing their high moral example and provide humanity with a horizon of civilization.