Störig writes about the life and works of the most important philosophers. He starts of with the thinkers and mindsets of the far east, classical Greece, Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However he does not forget to incorporate contemporary philosophers as well. You can find for example Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Comte, Spencer, Marx, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bergson, Whitehead, Husserl, Jaspers, Sartre, Buber, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Popper.
Storig stresses that this book is not meant for professional philosophers but it is merely an introduction. He is able to make complicated issues and theories comprehensible for a wider audience. The book draws connection between life and philosophy, he focuses more on characterization than on details. This is one of the reasons why this book is still popular fifty years.