Michael Hattersley received his doctorate in 1976 from Yale University and has taught literature and communications at a variety of institutions including the Harvard Business School.

He has previously published a volume of poetry, Cape Cod Light, a standard textbook, Management Communication, and scores of articles on literature, communication, and western cultural history.

Socrates and Jesus provides an overview of Western cultural development from the ancient Greeks to the current time. It opens with chapters on the historical Socrates and Jesus, then discusses how their legends developed and went into competition...

Socrates and Jesus provides an overview of Western cultural development from the ancient Greeks to the current time. It opens with chapters on the historical Socrates and Jesus, then discusses how their legends developed and went into competition for control of the ancient world. It examines subsequent Western history the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Romantic era, and the modern period and finds that the contrasting visions of Socrates and Jesus about how to pursue moral and scientific truth alternately clashed and compromised with each other, the apparent triumph of one always leading to the resurgence of the other. It identifies this dynamic as the engine of western history, distinguishing it in terms of energy, inquisitiveness, individuality, and a propensity towards mass democracy, from equally great but more static and hierarchical civilizations.Thus the book offers a comprehensive but concise theory of Western history, grounded in scholarly examination of the West's greatest intellects but written in a lively narrative style accessible to a broad range of educated readers. Many books have been written comparing Socrates and Jesus, but virtually all of these have either stressed their similarities (Paul Gouch's Reflections on Jesus and Socrates), used them in service of theological arguments (Nygren's Agape and Eros) or both. This book uniquely sticks to the historical evidence, emphasizes Socrates' and Jesus' creative conflict, and maintains that their dialogue was the dynamic that drove the historical development of Western civilization.Bestseller lists tend to be dominated by thrillers and mysteries while other genres are squeezed out, but biographies and historical surveys also make a strong showing. Jared Diamond's and Camille Paglia's, arguments between atheism and faith bring an examination of our past to bear on our present and future. Like those, this book, because of its balanced approach, should appeal to the educated general reader as well as teachers who assign supplementary college texts.