I'm working on this book on the trial of Socrates. It started out with the idea of the problem of freedom of thought...and expression...I started by spending a year on the English Seventeenth Century Revolutions, and I had a fascinating time. And then I felt I couldn't understand the English Seventeenth Century Revolutions without understanding the Reformation. When I got to the Reformation, I felt that I had to understand the premonitory movements that began in the Middle Ages. When I got there, I felt I had to understand the classical period." (quoted in Andrew Patner, I. F. Stone: A Portrait, p. 21)