"The most lucid and concise presentation I have read, of the grand lines of what every student should know about the history of Western thought.  The writing is elegant and carries the reader with the momentum of a novel...  It is really a noble performance."

—Joseph Campbell,
author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces

"The best intellectual history of the West in one volume I have ever seen."

—Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions

"It is a superb, enthralling book—a masterpiece: as gripping as a detective story; as moving as a poem. Tarnas writes lucidly, brilliantly, passionately, unfolding the great drama of the evolution of the Western mind act by act, scene by scene in precise and scholarly detail."

—Anne Baring, Resurgence

"The most thrilling narrative of the West's 3,000-year odyssey in pursuit of truth accessible to a broad public of which this reviewer is aware. . . . A work of genius."

—Harrison Sheppard, The Hellenic Journal

"The Passion of the Western Mind is as fine an account of the story of the Western mind, in all of its complexity and tensions, as I believe exists anywhere."

—Dale Cannon
Professor of Philosophy,
Western Oregon State College

"One of the most illuminating, satisfying, beautifully written, lucidly argued—and important—books I have ever read."

—Keith Thompson, Utne Reader

"[This] magnificent critical survey . . . allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture as if for the first time."

—Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle

"This brilliant classic is essential reading."

—David Lorimer
The Scientific and Medical Network Review

"It is stunning; it is brilliant; it is the single best book of intellectual history—in any field—that I have ever read."

—William Tanksley
Professor of English, Fordham University