[mercer]

From what I've read it's generally considered to be a very subjective work, and intentionally so. That said, I really liked it because of this, as it leads to a coherent, 'fluid' progression.

I vaguely recall a chapter on one pretty important philosopher where Russell concludes with something close to 'obviously this guy is full of shit'.

[VLM]

Only one? He dissed Hume pretty badly, something along the lines of sorry you don't think the scientific method is internally self contained, but pragmatically it works pretty well, so WRT that definition of truth, oh well. Also, he actually Godwin'd Rousseau, although that's more claiming evil than claiming BS, plus or minus a worldview that evil is just successful BS... or is it? And the Dewey chapter isn't really a Dewey chapter but mostly is a rant on the evils of intellectual arrogance although I don't remember if he specifically attacked one individual, other than happening to locate that rant in what turned out to be the Dewey chapter. He was more or less complimentary or better on average to everyone else.

The great man theory of history is highly politically incorrect at this time, or maybe highly out of fashion, style, or fad. Yet its very popular when teaching the history of philosophy. Perhaps that says more about the validity of being anti-great man vs what it says about teaching philosophy. Still it would be interesting to identify "the best" non-great man philosophy book, assuming there are any good ones.

[wfn]

Yeah, I think one of those philosophers who suffers from Russell's extreme bias (so to speak) was Nietzsche... Also, his discussion of pre-socratics is lacking IIRC; but on the whole the book is certainly a worthy read for sure (not that I've managed to read through all of it)..