Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its i...
Tagore was a fierce opponent of British rule in India. In this work he discusses the resurgence of the East and the challenge it poses to Western supremacy, calling for a future beyond nationalism,...
Originally published anonymously, Nature was the first modern essay to recommend the appreciation of the outdoors as an all-encompassing positive force. Emerson’s writings were recognized as ...
John Ruskin's insights into the need for individual artistic freedom, and his disdain for the mass-production art. of the Victorian era, radically altered society's perception of creative design a...
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened...
From Hannah Arendt, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism, her influential essay examining the relationship between violence, power, war and politics'Violence can destroy power; ...
On Women brings together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing on women, a crucial aspect of her work that has not until now received the attention it deservesWritten during...
When silence or tricks of language contribute to maintaining an abuse that must be reformed or a suffering that can be relieved, then there is no other solution but to speak out'Written...
Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannica...
The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deepThe revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those 'outsid...
"Radical and inspiring ... Yanagi's vision puts the connection between heart and hand before the transient and commercial" - Edmund de WaalThe daily lives of ordinary people a...
We fed the monster until it blew up ...'While Wall Street was busy creating the biggest credit bubble of all time, a few renegade investors saw it was about to burst, bet against the ba...
The phenomenal international bestseller that shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertaintyWhat have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall...
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened...
Adaring critique of communism and how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain, Camus' essay examines the revolutions in France and Russia, and argues that since they were both guilty of producing...
We, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation'James Baldwin's impassioned plea to 'end the racial nightmare' in America was a bestseller...
The second volume of Michel Foucault's pioneering analysis of the changing nature of desire explores how sexuality was perceived in classical Greek culture.From the stranger byways of G...
In the third volume of his acclaimed examination of sexuality in modern Western society, Foucault investigates the Golden Age of Rome to reveal a decisive break from the classical Greek version of ...
John Ruskin overturned Victorian society's ideas about art and architecture, arguing that ancient buildings must be conserved for their deep, mystical links with the past and that creative design i...
The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing rounds up the voices of women from across history to discuss the meaning and practice of feminism. This is a book that every person should read: the multiplicit...