“So Good a Bad Book”: Russell’s History of Western Philosophy , Part I

Abstract: Of Bertrand Russell’s three score books, his History of Western Philosophy is perhaps the best known. A publishing sensation from the moment of its publication in America in October 1945 and in Britain a year later, the book remains in print 80 years on. Curiously, however, the History has received inadequate scholarly attention. In particular, what has not been seriously examined are the reasons for this remarkable and unexpected success—why this immensely long book, which few contemporaries and even fewer modern students have bothered to read cover to cover, came to sell tens of thousands of copies in paper-rationed Britain and America. This paper seeks to answer that question by examining in Part i the book’s genesis, sources, composition, purposes (both avowed and latent), and in Part ii its critical reception in both Britain and the us, and continued reputation among scholars and laymen alike. A tract for its desperately troubled times, it spoke to a world fearful of totalitarianism, starving for liberal rebirth, and yearning for reasons to believe in progress, optimism, and reason, A History ofWestern Philosophy , for all its flaws and inadequacies, provided a source of solace, understanding, and hope to its readers then and now.