This is THE book that introduced me to the medieval thought and discover what this great author Étienne Gilson. True, it takes a little catch on the length (the text covers almost 15 centuries, from the fathers of the church - a hundred years AD - to finish a little after Eckhart, 1450): but what erudition! I, who saw philosophy resume, with Descartes, the wire lost since the Greeks, I am back in this opinion. It is wonderful to see all these thinkers groping, slowly, on the shoulders of giants and make their contribution to the great edifice of Western thought. This small flame that survival through time, revived by the relay assured midterm by Muslims and Persian thinkers, enlightens questions and much more intimate than brulantes cold and harsh systems of thought that will come after them (Kant, Hegel ...). Finally, Gilson has a real feather find some monastic, but who really charmed me, which blends perfectly well the form at the bottom.