Genius of the Ancient World SeriesHistorian Bettany Hughes travels to India, Greece, and China on the trail of three giants of ancient philosophy: the Buddha, Socrates, and Confucius. All three philosophers lived, between the 6th–5th BC, during a period of unprecedented, and intense, intellectual development. They were trailblazers, whose radical ideas signaled a key change in human consciousness. They embodied the shift, from a reliance on the supernatural, as the sole way to explain humankind’s place in the cosmos, to one where rational argument and logical reasoning offered new, exciting possibilities. Their game-changing ideas came about in response to huge changes in society: growing urbanization, advances in technology, flourishing trade and large-scale wars. Bettany follows in the footsteps of these great figures in her quest to unpack their philosophy in the context of their age.