Corrupting the Youth is a history of philosophy in Australia that will have a similar market appeal to Jostein Gaarder's best-seller Sophie's World. It is a grand survey, written to be completely accessible to the general reader, in which the author shows how the hard and basic questions of philosophy - including the meaning of life, the nature of the brain, the rights of minorities, the credibility of science, the existence of God - have been debated in Australia since the nineteenth century.