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"I prefer a broad-brush approach that makes a general contrast between the Socratic and Platonic mentalities and then counsels the reader to study the dialogues and make up his or her own mind." Never were truer words spoken. This broad-brush technique works like this: what Johnson finds sympatico in Plato, belongs to Socrates; otherwise Plato, who is, by the way, an intellectual academic, ergo bad. How bad? His transformation of Socrates from the real McCoy (because, according to Johnson, the Apology is a verbatim transcription--who knew? and the early dialogues are pure Socrates) into a "mindless, speaking doll--the murder and quasi-diabolical possession of a famous brain..." Now, I have, and have had for many many years, some serious issues with Plato, but...really?

Back to the 'painting in Johnson's own image': So, for example, Socrates is pretty much absent in the Republic except for a bit in Book 2 where Socrates credits God with being the cause only of good things. Also, Socrates (not Plato) is a monotheist and a lot like Jesus. And anything that is a bit twingy (why is Aristophanes making fun of Socrates? He must not have gotten to know him as the teddy bear he was yet) gets air-brushed out.

This cherry-picking keeps going: Socrates might have had a hand in writing the line in Euripides' Medea where she chastises herself for her 'impious deed'; then too, he,(Johnson "I like to feel--indeed,I am pretty certain") had a significant say in the reversing of the Mytilene decision. Johnson even picks out a bon mot that surely is really Socrates as recorded by Thucydides. Diotima of the Symposium becomes not only a historical character (and she may have been) but a friend of Socrates' mother and a midwife as well.

The book is an easy read, not badly written, and, as the man says, everyone gets to do his own interpretation, so if you like this kind of thing, knock yourself out. But please, don't take it as more than what it is: one guy's encounter with the very limited evidence that the ancient world has left us about Socrates.