Life in Fragments is a continuation of the themes and motifs explored in Zygmunt Bauman's acclaimed study, Postmodern Ethics (Blackwell, 1993). Described by Richard Sennett as a major event in social theory, Postmodern Ethics subverted the pieties of...

Taking seriously the idea that baseball is a study in failure--a very successful batter manages a base hit in just three of every ten attempts--Mark Kingwell argues that there is no better tutor of human failure's enduring significance than this strange,...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply affecting coming-of-age memoir about family, love, loss, basketball—and life itself—by the beloved author of The Prince of Tides and The Great SantiniDuring one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Pat Conroy...

We have long since lost our faith in the idea that human beings could achieve human happiness in some future ideal state—a state that Thomas More, writing five centuries ago, tied to a topos, a fixed place, a land, an island, a sovereign state under a...

In the spirit of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. This paperback includes a new preface from the author.Whether we're buying a pair of jeans,...

Having taken over the leadership of the French school of sociology after the death of his uncle, Emile Durkheim, in 1917, Mauss, celebrated author of The Gift, re-launched the flagship journal, the Année sociologique. Here are two of Mauss's most...

National Book Critics Circle Award WinnerNew York Times BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the YearA Boston Globe Best Book of 2016A Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016From the...

A concise history of racism from its emergence in the late Middle Ages to todayAre antisemitism and white supremacy manifestations of a general phenomenon? Why didn't racism appear in Europe before the fourteenth century, and why did it flourish as never...

'...from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called 'path breaking,' 'seminal,' 'essential,' a 'must read.' How the Irish Became White is such a study.' John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of...

Winner of the NBCC Award for General NonfictionNamed on Amazon's Best Books of the Year 2015--Michael Botticelli, U.S. Drug Czar (Politico) Favorite Book of the Year--Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize Economics (Bloomberg/WSJ) Best Books of 2015--Matt Bevin,...

The publication of Cultural Studies 1983 is a touchstone event in the history of Cultural Studies and a testament to Stuart Hall's unparalleled contributions. The eight foundational lectures Hall delivered at the University of Illinois in 1983 introduced...

Pain touches sensitive nerves in American liberalism, conservatism, and political life.In this history of American political culture, Keith Wailoo examines how pain has defined the line between liberals and conservatives from just after World War II to...

Knocking on the Door is the first book-length work to analyze federal involvement in residential segregation from Reconstruction to the present. Providing a particularly detailed analysis of the period 1968 to 1973, the book examines how the U.S...

Men’s Journal’s “Ultimate Football Reading List”“First-rate” sports writing on American football from an all-star line-up that includes Red Smith, Jimmy Breslin, Michael Lewis, and more (Wall Street Journal)Since football’s meteoric rise in the...

An instant classic of American sportswriting—the tennis essays of David Foster Wallace, “the best mind of his generation” (A. O. Scott) and “the best tennis-writer of all time” (New York Times)Gathered for the first time in a deluxe collector's edition,...

A provocative and timely collection of essays from a celebrated cultural critic on race, diversity, and resegregation."The Smartest Book of the Year" (The Washington Post)In these provocative, powerful essays acclaimed writer/journalist Jeff Chang...

We are living in an open sea, caught up in a continuous wave, with no fixed point and no instrument to measure distance and the direction of travel. Nothing appears to be in its place any more, and a great deal appears to have no place at all. The...

In this new book Zygmunt Bauman and Riccardo Mazzeo examine the contentious issue of the relation between literature (and the arts in general) and sociology (or, more generally, a branch of the humanities claiming scientific status). While many...

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List“Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times MagazineBarbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an...

Biological races do not exist--and never have. This view is shared by all scientists who study variation in human populations. Yet racial prejudice and intolerance based on the myth of race remain deeply ingrained in Western society. In his powerful...