Heraclitus in Ephesus was the first to consider the interrelatedness of things. Xenophanes of Colophon was the first champion of civility. In Samos, Pythagoras imagined an everlasting soul and took his ideas to Italy where they flowered again in surprising and radical -winning writer Adam Nicolson travels through this transforming world and asks what light these ancient thinkers can throw on our deepest preconceptions.