“A quite thorough and impressive work, not only a compelling defense of materialism but also a fair-minded if highly critical engagement with cultural theory. It isn’t clear how culturalists—especially the anti-Marxist ones—can effectively respond to...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice“Charming and brilliant.” —Times Literary Supplement“Provocative, stimulating, wise―the book that our success-obsessed age needs to read.”―Tom Holland“Bradatan, a philosopher, writes with elegance and wit, his...

The inspiring letters of philosopher, mystic, and freedom fighter Simone Weil to her family, presented for the first time in English.Now in the pantheon of great thinkers, Simone Weil (1909–1943) lived largely in the shadows, searching for her spiritual...

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year"A radiantly original contribution to a conversation gravely in need of new thinking."–Ben Tarnoff, New YorkerA visionary reexamination of the value of privacy in today’s hypermediated world—not just as a political right...

Todd McGowan forges a new theory of capitalism as a system based on the production of more than what we need: pure excess. He argues that the promise of more―more wealth, more enjoyment, more opportunity, without requiring any sacrifice―is the essence of...

A major Marxist thinker and critic in 1930s Japan, Tosaka Jun was among the world's most incisive--yet underrecognized--theorists of capitalism, fascism, and ideology during the years before World War II. The Japanese Ideology is his masterpiece, first...

Liberalism holds that individual freedom can be realized under capitalism. “Classical liberalism” tends to focus on excessive state interference as the primary threat to freedom. More recent theorists, however, recognize that capitalism, left to itself,...

Critics of liberal democracy from both the left and right view rights not as protectors of freedom but as impediments to self-determination and call for radically regenerative political alternatives. Liberals respond to these challenges by reasserting...

With the unusual clarity, distinctive and engaging style, and penetrating insight that have drawn such a wide range of readers to his work, Ian Hacking here offers his reflections on the philosophical uses of history. The focus of this volume, which...

Foucault's intellectual indebtedness to Nietzsche is apparent in his writing, yet the precise nature, extent, and nuances of that debt are seldom explored. Foucault himself seems sometimes to claim that his approach is essentially Nietzschean, and...

In his renowned courses at the Collège de France from 1982 to 1984, Michel Foucault devoted his lectures to meticulous readings and interpretations of the works of Plato, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, among others. In this his aim was not,...

The Geography of Morals is a work of extraordinary ambition: an indictment of the parochialism of Western philosophy, a comprehensive dialogue between anthropology, empirical moral psychology, behavioral economics, and cross-cultural philosophy, and a...

A leading philosopher shows that if the pursuit of happiness is the question, Epicureanism is the answerEpicureanism has a reputation problem, bringing to mind gluttons with gout or an admonition to eat, drink, and be merry. In How to Be an Epicurean,...

A celebration of waiting throughout history, and of its importance for connection, understanding, and intimacy in human communicationWe have always been conscious of the wait for life‑changing messages, whether it be the time it takes to receive a text...

Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big TopicsIn the first title of an exciting new series one of the world's leading political scientists asks the big questions about politics: what is it, why we do we need it and where, in these turbulent times,...

A highly original history, tracing the least understood and most intractable form of organized human aggression from Ancient Rome through the centuries to the present day.We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is, and what it...

R. M. Hare has brought together in this volume the best of his uncollected essays in moral philosophy, several of them previously unpublished or revised for this collection. They span the whole range of his ethical interests, from the most abstract to...

Life in the west is lived within a culture awash with the advertising, brand-names and labels of conspicuous consumerism. Accordingly, consumerism and consumer culture have become central to critical discussions of identity, postmodernity and culture as...

In this sweeping new history of humanity, told through the prism of our ever-changing moral norms and values, Hanno Sauer shows how modern society is just the latest step in the long evolution of good and evil and everything in between. What makes us...