Thomas Aquinas in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
In yet another of his popular books explaining the ideas of the great philosophers in accessible language, Paul Strathern takes on "a shadowy figure amongst the incense clouds of theology," who also happens to be "the finest philosophical mind in Europe for a thousand years (since St.  Augustine)," St. Thomas Aquinas. Strathern applies his trademark humor to theSumma Theologica("Christianity's answer to the Talmud") and theSumma Contra Gentiles, whose "imaginary reader is generally reckoned to be an intellectual Arab. After being subjected to hundreds of pages demonstrating the incontrovertible truth of the Christian religion, it is assumed that he has no alternative but to forswear Islam and embrace Christianity. How many intellectual Arabs subjected themselves to this grueling experience and reached the same conclusion is unknown." Underneath the gags, however, you'll gain a reasonable summation of Aquinas's impact on the scholasticism of his era and the validity of his continued, if somewhat diminished, relevance to present-day philosophy.