The Axial Age

Between about 800 and 200 BC, thinkers in several places, mostly unaware of each other, asked new questions about how to live and how to rule.

In India the Buddha and Mahavira, in China Confucius and Laozi, in Greece Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and in Judah the prophets reshaped religion and ethics.

Their ideas still guide billions of people. Cities, writing, trade and constant war may explain why it happened at the same time.