[RUSSELL, Bertrand]. History of Western Philosophy, and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1946.
FIRST UK EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION. Cloth-bound, hardcover with dust jacket, thick octavo (22.5 x 15 x 5 cm.), pp. 916. English text. Bound in publisher's original grey cloth, supplied in the original dust jacket with '21s net' on inside front flap and printed on re-used war-time paper with wartime map of Cologne on verso. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure. Covers and contents largely very well-preserved. Spotting to top page edges. Dust jacket with slight wear to spine ends and light staining to rear. Without previous ownership markings. An excellent copy.
Notes: Russell's History of Western Philosophy stands independently as a significant work in the discipline. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that 'His History is still widely read and did much to initiate twentieth-century research on a wide range of historical figures from the presocratics to Leibniz', and still provides one of the most popular systematic introductions to western thought. This first edition holds interest as a historical artefact in itself, its dust jacket printed on part of a military map of Cologne as a result of wartime paper rationing.
