[chms]

Bertrand Russel – A History of Western Philosophy.

Easily my most favorite non-fiction book. Even though there are some flaws in the treatment of some philosophers (and their models) here and there (esp. 19th Century ones – but it might just be that I'm more familiar with these myself), it's a great read: Well written, thorough, and never shy with his own opinion. The chapter on scholastic philosophy was an eye-opener for me, as was the part about the 11th-Century church reforms.

Before I read this book, I rarely cared about pre-Kantian philosophy, as I thought it to be outdated and not really relevant anymore. Russel encouraged me to re-discover the philosophical models from a cultural-historical point of view – something that sounds obvious to me now, but at the time I discovered the book (in my early twenties) it was not.