Time of the Sages Socrates, Confucius, the Buddha and the Ideas that Shaped Our World

2,400 years ago there was a sudden and dramatic burst of new ideas across the world. Simultaneously in Athens, Socrates was prompting his contemporaries to question their assumptions; in India, the Buddha was grappling with the boundary between the self and the world; and in China, Confucius was formulating a philosophy based on collective harmony. For all their differences, each was pioneering a provocative new way of thinking about ethics and politics; a shift from asking what the gods demand to asking how human beings should live together. Where religion had relied on authority, these secular philosophies relied on persuasion. These were not prophets, but teachers. They wrote nothing down. It was only through extraordinary followers and compelling arguments that their ideas spread. Time of the Sages tells the story of this watershed in the history of the human mind, and shows why these ancient questions about how to live still matter today.