A daring translator, Quincy gives the most acclaimed of ancient thinkers a saucy new voice: colloquial, pungent, and terse.  Animated by a new tone, the characters in Plato’s classic dialogues speak with vernacular directness as they ask Socrates why he is “always hanging around” or as they complain that he’s “driving [them] nuts.”  But even as he gives Plato’s characters license to speak in casual idioms, Quincy trims their speeches, abridging dialogues he judges verbose.  As if such tampering with Plato’s words weren’t enough to scandalize traditionalists, Quincy supplements the chronologically arranged dialogues with historical notes that cast an unflattering shadow on the Greek philosopher and his famous tutor: Plato stands exposed as a propagandist hiding his own political blunders, Socrates as an ill-tempered slanderer of a gifted rival.  Such irreverence will send some readers scurrying for the cover of canonical translations.  But Quincy’s brashness will attract many readers glad to See Plato and Socrates rescued from their honorific spots among the museum alabasters, set free again to discomfit and perplex the complacent.
— Bryce Christensen, in Booklist

Quincy thinks “the dialogue is an odd medium for doing philosophy unless you are a frustrated playwright” and also that “Plato liked to show off.”  So he has trimmed the dialogues to the bare bones favored by those who like to split them into neat arguments to which the logics developed from Aristotle to Russell can be applied.  Sometimes this sheds light, but sometimes, as in the Theaetetus, little snippets that lie at the roots of much recent epistemology get lost, and, overall, most of Plato’s struggle to make the Greek language work for philosophers has disappeared.  It may be handy to have the four fat volumes of the revised Benjamin Jowett translation (The Dialogues of Plato) reduced to one, but Quincy, a political scientist by trade, notes that “it is an aid, not a substitute,” and librarians might do well to paste this warning on the cover.
—Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa, in Library Journal

This fascinating book is a new translation of Plato’s dialogues, a translation done with two objects in mind.  The first was to convey the spice of the original Greek text. Apparently the first English translations of Plato were done in a polite and bowdlerizing era, whereas the Greek text was rather less polite and occasionally outright lewd.  The second was to condense Plato’s more elaborate rhetorical flights so as to make his philosophical arguments plain and easy to follow without losing any essential nuances.

I predict that this book is going to start a fairly large number of arguments.  In the first place, I rather expect it will disjoint the noses of quite a few academic purists. I’m sure that many philosophy departments will ring with the question, “Have you seen the new Reader’s Digest version of Plato?” accompanied by snickers and giggles.

The larger number of arguments, though, will be among the groups of people who actually read the book.  Now, I have to preface the following remarks by saying that I am not a philosophy major, nor do I speak classical Greek, nor have I read all that much Plato in English translation (and that little almost twenty-five years ago).  In short, I am no judge of whether Quincy’s condensation is as faithful and nuanced as he claims.  On the other hand, I think I can fairly say that it makes for good reading. In the dialogs that I’ve read so far (Lysis, Euthyphro, Crito, Apology, Phaedo, and Gorgias) I found myself following Plato’s arguments without the least bit of difficulty and finding lots of spots where I wanted to argue with him.  What’s not to like?

And that’s why I think the book will start lots of arguments.  Because Plato’s line of reasoning is so clearly presented, it becomes easier to take exception with it.  And as different readers are likely to take exception to different parts, I’d expect discussion to flow fast and furious.  In the preface, Quincy notes that he’s taught from this translation, and “only in my Plato class have I had to break up a fistfight between students.”  I expect a book club could have great fun with it.

The dialogs are presented in order of composition; each begins with a historical note (sometimes quite lengthy) about the situation in Athens at the time the dialog supposedly takes place.  These are also likely to raise eyebrows, at least for those familiar with Plato and Socrates and not with wider Greek history.  We’re accustomed to thinking of Plato and Socrates as two of the “good guys”; like almost all human beings, their actual conduct was less than saintly.

Although Quincy claims that his condensed translation captures every important nuance of the original Greek text, he is quick to point out that this book is not intended to replace standard translations of Plato’s work, but rather is intended to be an aid to understanding them.  In fact, he recommends reading each dialog at least three times: first in a full translation, then in his condensed translation, and then in the full translation once more.  For philosophy students I suspect that this is wise council; for the generally curious reader, though, Plato Unmasked stands perfectly well on its own.
— Will Duquette, March 20, 2005, in A View From the Foothills

One of the most enjoyable books I have read in years. Really entices you to read and think about Plato afresh. Each dialogue is placed in its historical context, the lengthy introduction summarized, and the “core” material translated in full (as the author says in his intro, this is not meant to be a substitute for a complete translation).

In my opinion, it’s hardly possible to recommend this highly enough.  Warning: I am not an expert, just an interested layman, so hopefully a professional can post an opinion here soon. 
— S. Boyce (London UK)