Adam Nicolson has crafted a captivating exploration of the essence of being human within the tapestry of Ancient Greece. Against the backdrop of a burgeoning world of philosophy questioning life, ancient gods, and enigmatic creatures, mankind is seen breaking away from dictated ideologies, embarking on a journey of self-reflection and pondering its purpose.

Structured around key questions like "Does love rule the universe?" and "How can I be true to myself?", each chapter unfolds to reveal profound insights. The culmination in "The Invention of Understanding" extends the inquiry, urging us to draw connections between ancient wisdom and our contemporary existence in 2023. Nicolson delves into the lives of iconic figures like Homer, Odysseus, and Pythagoras, exploring their impact on the evolution of philosophical thought.

Nicolson's prose is a meticulous brushstroke that paints vivid portraits of locations, eras, and events, transporting readers to another time. Facilitated by his passion for sailing and navigating the seas, the narrative provides a palpable sense of traversing trade routes and witnessing the landscape and architecture unfold.

Each chapter is a testament to meticulous research, abounding in cultural references that illuminate the profound wisdom and knowledge of the Greeks. Nicolson's work not only resurrects the past but also prompts us to discern and apply the lessons and legacies of our ancient ancestors in the contemporary world.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

How to Be is a journey into the origins of Western thought. Nicolson suggests that early Greek thought came from a ‘harbour mind’ that was focused on the meeting of land and sea - that hugely formative ideas emerged in the harbour-cities of the Aegean.
I enjoyed Nicolson's last book on Why Homer Matters and was very much looking forward to reading this but although it is well written I didn't find this book as gripping overall with some chapters being more interesting than others.

I did think that this might have been very dry and overly academic but how wrong I was . This is a fascinating look into the psyche and day to day life of the ancient greek life. I could not put it down.

There's a lot of books about Ancient Greece but there's so few about Ancient Greek culture and this one was a treat.
Well researched, well written and informative. There's a lot of food for thought and there's the story of how the Western culture came into being.
A highly recommended read
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

How To Be tells the immersive and accessible story of Western thought, its origins and its evolution from early Greece; it is an exploration of the sea-and-city world in which, in the Western tradition, the great and everlasting questions of existence were first explored. Prize-winning history writer Nicolson is a staunch believer in the need to return to the days of pre-Socratic Ancient Greece in order to understand the significant impact the country and culture had when it came to cultivating so many unique minds. I must say, as a philosophy enthusiast it's a joy to have the early-Greek thinkers set against the political and geographical context of the times illustrating what the cultural zeitgeist around them was like at the time to produce such schools of thought. The idea for the book began after visiting Samos, a Greek island in the eastern Aegean, with his wife and having a copy of Kirk & Raven's The Presocratic Thinkers to hand. It outlined the first emergence 2,500 years ago of the instinct that understanding was not simply to be learned from priests or elders, or experts, or by imagining a congeries of terrifying metaphysical monsters, but could be gathered by each of us applying the worrying and thinking mind to the conundrums of life.

How To Be both asks and offers answers to the question as to why an eruption of new thinking happened in this place and at that time, and what Nicolson has written is soaked in the double belief: firstly that places give access to minds, however distant and strange, that philosophy has a geography and that to be in the places these thinkers knew, visit their cities, sail their seas and find their landscapes not overwhelmed by the millennia that have passed is to know something about them that cannot be found otherwise; and second that, despite that locatedness, and despite their age, the frame of mind of these first thinkers remains astonishingly and surprisingly illuminating today. These first Greek thinkers, teaching and writing between about 650 and 450 BC, found their lives on the boundary between the perception of a universal harmony and the daily encounter with the world as it is, in all its difficulty and multiplicity. They did not provide a set of rationalist solutions nor religious doctrines, but again and again explored the borderland between those ways of seeing, holding their position in the shadowy ground between the poetic and the analytic, the physical and metaphysical.

The narrative visits several important spots, including Miletus - the birthplace of the first theorists of the physical world; Ephesus - the home of Heraclitus, the first person to consider the interrelatedness of things; the twin cities of Notion and Colophon - the country of Xenophanes, the first philosopher of civility; and Lesbos - the island of Sappho and Alcaeus, the greatest early lyric poets. These are philosophers known to have established freethinking and regarded as being instrumental in the rise of such thinking. Throughout Nicolson illustrates the book with photographs, art and maps relevant to the text which bring the time and places vividly to life, and the detail, depth and accuracy speak to his extensive research on the period in question. Written in a flowing and eminently readable style, we are taken on a beguiling and informative journey that looks back at the very foundations of Western philosophy in the context in which it was birthed; despite having read many similar tombs this is the only one that has approached the topic in this manner and from such an original angle. Full of wit, warmth and wisdom, this is a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone looking to contextualise early thinking, those at the forefront of Ancient Greek philosophy and their respective ideas.

Adam Nicolson has written a fascinating book that explores the meaning of To Be Human within the context of Ancient Greece and an emerging world of philosophy that is questioning life in relation to ancient gods and curious creatures and to where man is independently abandoning the dictated ideology and beginning to self reflect on his purpose.
Each chapter is explored through a key question: Does love rule the universe? How can I be true to myself?... culminating in The invention of Understanding and raises broader questions that can also help us to consider what we can learn and recognise in 2023 from these ancestors and their legacy .Familiar names such as Homer, Odysseus, Pythagoras are explored and their impact on the evolution of philosophical thinking.
Nicolson's prose captures the locations, periods and events in meticulous detail transporting us to another time- obviously assisted by his love of sailing and navigating the seas ,the sense of travelling the trade routes and observing the landscape and architecture is palpable.
Each chapter is meticulously researched and the abundance of cultural references and knowledge truly highlights the wisdom and knowledge of the Greek. The maps and photographs of artefacts deepen the readers connection to each essay/chapter and understanding of the period . Adam Nicolson has produced an impressively knowledgable and accessible read to explore Ancient Greece and help us dig deeper into a time of philosophical development that is still has its impact on us today.

Thank you to Net Galley for this advance copy

I picked up this book because I have been reading a lot of Greek mythological retellings and have recently visited museums and archeological sites in Cyprus which has fuelled my interest on this topic.

In this book Nicolson takes an in depth look at both the physical and metaphysical lives of the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean. It examines how the development of harbour cities from 1200BC cultivated numerous great minds; it provides insight with facts and archeological discoveries whilst also exploring larger philosophical concerns from key thinkers of the era that are still relevant today.

Overall I enjoyed this book, the text flows well without being too dense. I found it really helpful to contextualise the fiction I have been reading recently with this book. It contains lots of accompanying images, maps and quotes that really enhance the reader’s understanding of the history, philosophy and geography discussed. Having never studied classics and only read philosophy at A-level I found this book a really accessible way to further my understanding.

Thank you to NetGalley, 4th Estate and William Collins and to Adam Nicolson for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is readable and engaging book charts the rise of philosophy in the Ionian islands and coastal towns. He focuses on 8 or 9 thinkers, starting with Thales, who emerged from a general god-filled world of the early epic poems and hymns, and ending with Empedocles the Sicilian-Greek. Each chapter starts with a description of a particular harbour city and then gives a neat survey of the key thinker from that city. I think the title suggests a bit more of a self-help book and thus slightly mis-represents this mix of philosophy and history.

The author explains things like this because his point is that maritime trade and the cultural mixing of people and goods it implies was the dynamic motor of change. These harbour cities were better incubators of creative and critical thinking than were the big land-locked capitals. The kind of critical thinking in the East Greek islands was full of movement and transformation; but when the Persian empire dominated the region and the Greeks migrated to Italy and Sicily the thinking solidified and focused more on enduring states beyond movement and change.

The author’s talent lies in communicating knowledge and ideas clearly and elegantly. His pen portraits of places and their people mix archaeology, history, philosophy and literature. What you find is that once the commercial and trading links are sketched in you are primed for the ideas. There are no long lectures as every explanation is conveyed through artefacts, quotations, or a historical incidents that are interesting in themselves, but also help construct knowledge in bite-sized chunks. The result is that it feels fluent.

There is much here that seems new – bits of info gleaned from archaeology (abandoned cities and shipwrecks), recent discoveries of fragments of poetry, and (not least) lots of helpful photos and maps. The effort to pull it all together is impressive and the notes reveal the extend of modern scholarship behind it all. It is an ambitious book, making complex and detailed knowledge accessible and interesting. But I think it succeeds amazingly well. If you like Bettany Hughes’ books/TV programmes then you will love this.