Ancient Greece — Plato's Republic invented political philosophy, epistemology, and the extended allegory — all during a single long dinner party argument. Socrates builds an ideal city in speech to answer one question: what is justice?

The Cave allegory remains the best metaphor for enlightenment ever devised. The Ship allegory is still painfully relevant to democratic politics. And the Ring of Gyges thought experiment predates every invisible-man story by two millennia.

But the Republic is also unsettling in ways that summaries skip. Plato wants to ban poets, abolish the family for guardians, and institute a eugenics program. Reading it honestly means grappling with a great mind arriving at troubling conclusions.

"You will argue with every page. That is the point."

Essential reading for anyone serious about the Western tradition.