Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic

Philosopher-Kings is a remarkable book, in the breadth of its scope as well as in the texture of its execution. It constitutes the most ambitious contemporary reading of the Republic, the most persistent, single-minded effort to give a unified reading of this immensely complex text. It is innovative in its attention not to a particular passage, argument, or theory on Plato’s part, but to the whole of the Republic as a deeply coherent text, with no loose ends. -Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University