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In A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in France, leading thinker Fr�d�ric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B-the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble-and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. 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A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response. Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions-compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive-for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can \"allow\" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today. `Take note world. 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A masterpiece' Angela Duckworth, author of Grit `An absolutely brilliant investigation of a massive societal problem that has been hiding in plain sight' Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics From the world-leaders in strategic thinking and the multi-million copy bestselling authors of Thinking Fast and Slow and Nudge, the next big book to change the way you think. We like to think we make decisions based on good reasoning - and that our doctors, judges, politicians, economic forecasters and employers do too. In this groundbreaking book, three world-leading behavioural scientists come together to assess the last great fault in our collective decision-making: noise. We all make bad judgements more than we think. 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In the pursuit of progress, of growth and expansion, we have levelled cities, flattened mountains, charted the globe and ushered in a new geological epoch unique in our planet's 4.5-billion-year history. The idea of progress has compelled societies toward exploration, invention, and grandiosity on one hand, and on the other, genocide, slavery, ecocide, and conquest: it is the root of our civilization's success, as well as its looming demise. Geographer Samuel Miller McDonald offers a radical new perspective on the myth upon which the modern world is built, illuminating its blood-strewn lineage and suggesting an urgent alternative. He traces the history of how human societies broke from their pasts, broke from their environments, and broke from longstanding egalitarian values that sustained them, supplanting these with one imperative to rule all others: progress. 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The new edition has an extra 32 pages allowing several groups more space and completely or partly new plates with more detailed text: grouse, loons, several groups of raptors, terns, owls, swifts, woodpeckers, swallows, redstarts and some other relatives to the flycatchers (formerlyoften called `small thrushes'), tits and a few finches and buntings are some of these. More than 50 plates are either new or have been repainted, completely or partly. Apart from this, a few new vignettes have been added. The section with vagrants has been expanded to accommodate more images and longer texts for several species. The entire text and all maps have of course also been revised. The book provides all the information needed to identify any species at any time of the year, covering size, habitat, range, identification and voice. 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From a prizewinning writer, After Nations offers a sweeping history of this most unquestioned of modern structures and a bold speculation about its future. Until recently, the system of nation-states appeared settled and eternal. Not anymore. As American hegemony unwinds and Western countries slide into anxiety and debt, there is a resurgence of tyranny, imperialism and war. It is no longer clear that states can continue delivering `normal' services, let alone defeat inequality and climate change. Even in rich countries, many feel they are being progressively neglected; in some parts of the world, populations are entirely abandoned by nation-states and must build systems of their own. Rana Dasgupta traces the formation and rise of the nation-state system to explain its multiple failures today. 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Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators From the coauthor of Algorithms to Live By, an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to describe the ways we think, from its origins three hundred years ago to the ideas behind modern AI systems and the ways in which they still differ from human minds. Everyone has a basic understanding of how the physical world works. We learn about physics and chemistry in school, letting us explain the world around us in terms of concepts like force, acceleration, and gravity-the Laws of Nature. But we don't have the same fluency with concepts needed to understand the world inside us-the Laws of Thought. While the story of how mathematics has been used to reveal the mysteries of the universe is familiar, the story of how it has been used to study the mind is not. There is no one better to tell that story than Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton's AI Lab and a renowned expert in the field of cognitive science. 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Primo Levi translated Kafka into Italian from the German he had learned in Auschwitz; Milena Jesensk� lovingly into Czech before she too was deported to the camps; Bruno Schulz into Polish before being shot by an SS officer; and Jorge Luis Borges into Spanish as he slowly went blind. Vladimir Nabokov annotated The Metamorphosis in exile, having undergone his own transformation from native to foreigner, while Kafka's translators back in Russia were condemned to perpetual anonymity by the Soviet censor. 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Financial struggle is caused by one thing-our thoughts. To have a rich life, you have to use your mind, the very thing that has previously kept money from you. You must free yourself once and for all of a scarcity mindset, which unfortunately plagues the majority of people. When your mind becomes wealthy, YOU become wealthy. Countdown to Riches reveals simple, proven wealth-attracting practices that are easily incorporated into daily life, and that will rapidly change the financial circumstances of anyone who applies them. In these pages, you will: Find 21 days of life-changing practices leading to financial freedom. Unlock the power of the mind to create a rich life in every sense. Adopting new habits that will create and maintain wealth. 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From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn, and many worlds to gain.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"James Bridle","offers":[{"title":"384 pages \/ 30\/03\/2023 \/ Philosophy: epistemology \u0026 theory of knowledge","offer_id":56965767659895,"sku":"9780141994260","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780141994260.jpg?v=1783949608"},{"product_id":"9780197605110","title":"American Political Parties and Elections : A Very Short Introduction - L.Sandy Maisel","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. Participation in elections in the United States is much lower than in the vast majority of mature democracies. Perhaps this is because of the lack of competition in a country where only two parties have a true chance of winning, despite the fact that a large number of citizens claim allegiance to neither and think badly of both. Or perhaps it is because in the U.S. campaign contributions disproportionately favor incumbents in most legislative elections, or that largely unregulated groups such as the now notorious 527 organizations have as much impact on the outcome of a campaign as do the parties or the candidates' campaigns. For instance, in two of the last six presidential elections, the winner of the popular vote lost the election in the Electoral College; in two others, a change of fewer than 100,000 votes in selected states would have led to the same result. These factors offer a very clear picture of the problems that underlie our much trumpeted electoral system. The third edition of this Very Short Introduction analyzes these issues and more. Accounting for changes in electoral coalitions and the extent to which the American electorate is polarized in the wake of Donald Trump, L. Sandy Maisel explains how the system actually works while shining a light on some of its flaws. 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Like Napoleon he will assert his will and his crime will be justified by its elimination of 'vermin' for the sake of the greater good. But Raskolnikov is torn apart by fear, guilt, and a growing conscience under the influence of his love for Sonya. Meanwhile the police detective Porfiry is on his trail. 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Through her portrait of a Midlands town, George Eliot addresses gender relations and class, self-knowledge and self-delusion, community and individualism. Eliot follows the fortunes of the town's central characters as they find, lose, and rediscover ideals and vocations in the world. Through its psychologically rich portraits, the novel contains some of the great characters of literature, including the idealistic but na�ve Dorothea Brooke, beautiful and egotistical Rosamund Vincy, the dry scholar Edward Casaubon, the wise and grounded Mary Garth, and the brilliant but proud Dr Lydgate. In its whole view of a society, the novel offers enduring insight into the pains and pleasures of life with others, and explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life:. art, religion, science, politics, self, society, and, above all, human relationships. 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In contrast to religious thinkers, Goff argues that the traditional God is a bad explanation of cosmic purpose. Instead, he explores a range of alternative possibilities for accounting for cosmic purpose, from the speculation that we live in a computer simulation to the hypothesis that the universe itself is a conscious mind. Goff scrutinizes these options with analytical rigour, laying the foundations for a new paradigm of philosophical enquiry into the middle ground between God and atheism. 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But there has been no comprehensive history of this great intellectual journey since 1945. Intelligible for students and eye-opening for philosophy readers, A. C. Grayling covers with characteristic clarity and elegance subjects like epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, logic, and the philosophy of mind, as well as the history of debates in these areas, through the ideas of celebrated philosophers as well as less well-known influential thinkers. The History of Philosophy takes the reader on a journey from the age of the Buddha, Confucius and Socrates. Through Christianity's dominance of the European mind to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. On to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre, then the philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world. And finally, into philosophy today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"A.C. 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Full of revealing examples from a storied career, including key briefings with Prime Ministers and strategies used in conflicts from the Cold War to the present, in How Spies Think Professor Omand arms us with the tools to sort fact from fiction, and shows us how to use real intelligence every day.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David Omand","offers":[{"title":"368 pages \/ 01\/07\/2021 \/ Intelligence \u0026 reasoning","offer_id":56965844631927,"sku":"9780241385197","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780241385197.jpg?v=1780926151"},{"product_id":"9780241579602","title":"How to Prevent the Next Pandemic - Bill Gates","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe COVID-19 pandemic isn't over, but even as governments around the world strive to put it behind us, they're also starting to talk about what happens next. How can we prevent a new pandemic from killing millions of people and devastating the global economy? Can we even hope to accomplish this? Bill Gates believes the answer is yes, and in this book he lays out clearly and convincingly what the world should have learned from COVID-19 and what all of us can do to ward off another disaster like it. Relying on the shared knowledge of the world's foremost experts and on his own experience of combating fatal diseases through the Gates Foundation, he first makes us understand the science of corona diseases. Then he helps us understand how the nations of the world, working in conjunction with one another and with the private sector, can not only ward off another COVID-like catastrophe but also go far to eliminate all respiratory diseases, including the flu. 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Written in 1970, with the Holocaust and Hiroshima still fresh in recent memory, war in Vietnam raging and the streets of Europe and America exploding into student protest, Hannah Arendt's seminal work dissects violence in the twentieth century: its nature and causes, its relationship with politics and war, its role in the modern age. Arendt warns against the glamorization of violence by revolutionary causes, and argues that true, lasting power can never grow 'out of the barrel of a gun'. 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Politicians make big promises, deliver little to nothing, and keep the game rigged in their favour. But what can we do? With disarming clarity and a deep sense of urgency, acclaimed political theorist H�l�ne Landemore argues that electoral politics is broken but democracy isn't. We've just been doing it wrong. Drawing on ancient Athenian practices and contemporary citizens' assemblies, Landemore champions an alternative approach that is alive, working, and growing around the world: civic lotteries that select everyday people to govern, not as career politicians but as temporary stewards of the common good. When regular citizens come together in this way, they make smarter, fairer, more forward-thinking decisions, often bringing out the best in one another. Witnessing this process firsthand, Landemore has learned that democracy should be like a good party where even the shyest guests feel welcome to speak, listen, and be heard. With sharp analysis and real-world examples, drawing from her experience with deliberative processes in France and elsewhere, Landemore shows us how to move beyond democracy as a spectator sport, embracing it as a shared practice-not just in the voting booth but in shaping the laws and policies that govern our lives. 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Underpinning our daily lives - whether it's the fit bits on our wrists, likes on social media, and even school rankings - they have become pervasive and increasingly dangerous, warping our desires and outsourcing our values to external institutions. Instead of encouraging us to be more playful, to take pleasure in the journey of striving towards a goal, institutions, corporations and bureaucracies weaponize scoring systems to impose their own interests. No matter what, we always seem to be playing by someone else's rules. In The Score, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen shows us how this newly `gamified' world has fundamentally captured our value systems, turning what might be moral or personal life choices into numerical data, and forcing us to prioritise what can be measured and monetized over what is truly meaningful to us. A life-long lover of online and board games himself, Nguyen argues that we should not stop playing games but rather take a step back and become more aware of their immersive and profound power, so that we might chart a way towards more creative and joyful lives. To start playing our own game.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"C.Thi Nguyen","offers":[{"title":"368 pages \/ 13\/01\/2026 \/ Popular philosophy","offer_id":56965940806007,"sku":"9780241653975","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780241653975_df7f7779-59ed-4c04-a170-6c2cc001c2ad.jpg?v=1783950090"},{"product_id":"9780241688182","title":"Human Capital : The Tragedy of the Education Commons - Guy Standing","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the clearest and most important studies to be published on education, worldwide, in many decades' Danny DorlingDoes the education system make better people? Why are so many - teachers and students alike - stressed and dissatisfied? Do we need to revive real education? Ideally, education is about the pursuit of truth, beauty and morality. But in the last few decades, a perilous fixation with human capital - skills, knowledge and aptitudes required for the labour market - has trampled over curricula, schools and universities. Rather than learning how to think critically about the world, from cradle to grave students are trained to be more effective workers, to make more money, and to serve an hegemonic ideology. Teachers and researchers are pressed to serve those goals. In this concluding book in his series on the commons, Guy Standing shows us how education - intrinsically a common public good - has been enclosed, privatised, financialised and corrupted, turned into an instrument of societal control, not human emancipation, weakening democracy, not strengthening it. 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First we join Coates on his inaugural trip to Africa - a journey to Dakar, where he finds himself in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and the ghost-haunted country of his imagination. He then takes readers to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on the banning of his own work and the deep roots of a false and fiercely protected American mythology - visibly on display in its segregationist statues. Finally in Palestine, Coates sees with devastating clarity the tragedy that grows in the clash between the stories we tell and reality on the ground. Written at a dramatic moment in American and global history, this work from one of our most important writers is about the urgent need to embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths. ***`Coates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing' Booklist`Coats always writes with purpose . . . 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With insight into the spiritual and economic roots of techno-capitalism, Kingsnorth reveals how the Machine, in the name of progress, has choked Western civilization, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us in its image. From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, he shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game-and how your very soul is at stake. It takes effort to remain truly human in the age of the Machine. Here Kingsnorth reminds us what humanity requires: a healthy suspicion of entrenched power; connection to land, nature and heritage; and a deep attention to matters of the spirit. 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A book of reflections, of words and light, it has at its heart the tiny, north-facing courtyard garden at her home, cultivated solely through the reflected sunlight of the mirrors which she must move throughout the day, as the earth turns on its axis. In a poem written at eight years old, Han Kang imagined a `gold thread' of connection - an idea which she explores here with luminous attention, beginning with her Nobel Lecture. She writes of the wonder of following the thread we call language into the depths of other hearts, and her profound sense of an electric current which joins writer and reader. 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Gathered here are some of the most extraordinary and memorable speeches of the last century - from Lenin to Reagan, Thatcher to Malala. Some are well known, others less so, but all helped form the world we now inhabit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Brian MacArthur","offers":[{"title":"672 pages \/ 05\/10\/2017 \/ Politics \u0026 government","offer_id":56966084133239,"sku":"9780241982303","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780241982303.jpg?v=1783950574"},{"product_id":"9780241991039","title":"The End of History and the Last Man - Francis Fukuyama","description":"\u003cp\u003eA LANDMARK WORK OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. A GLOBAL BESTSELLER. STILL AS RELEVANT TODAY. With the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 the threat of the Cold War which had dominated the second half of the twentieth century vanished. And with it the West looked to the future with optimism but renewed uncertainty. The End of History and the Last Man was the first book to offer a picture of what the new century would look like. Boldly outlining the challenges and problems to face modern liberal democracies, Francis Fukuyama examined what had just happened and predicted what was coming next. Now updated with a new afterword, Fukuyama shows how the central issue today remains the same. Have any political and economic models arisen that could challenge liberal democracy as the best way of organizing human societies? He remains unconvinced. Tackling religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes and war, The End of History and the Last Man is as compelling today as it was when it was written - and just as provocative too. 'Awesome . . . a landmark . . . profoundly realistic and important . . . supremely timely and cogent' Washington Post\u003cbr\u003e'Clearly written, immensely ambitious' New York Times\u003cbr\u003e'Clever, important, teeming with original ideas' Mail on Sunday\u003cbr\u003e'We are indebted to Fukuyama for such an ambitious work of political philosophy' Foreign Affairs\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Francis Fukuyama","offers":[{"title":"464 pages \/ 17\/09\/2020 \/ Social \u0026 political philosophy","offer_id":56966120767863,"sku":"9780241991039","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780241991039_39140703-f2f0-44d4-8bb9-8e17791e3cb5.jpg?v=1783950607"},{"product_id":"9780241998779","title":"How Migration Really Works : 22 things you need to know about the most divisive issue in politics - Hein de Haas","description":"\u003cp\u003eA VITALLY IMPORTANT BOOK CHALLENGING THE MANY MISCONCEPTIONS SURROUNDING THE TOPIC OF IMMIGRATION. 'A book that will force Left and Right alike to reconsider old assumptions . . . an important book' The Telegraph`A careful, balanced, and convincing take . . . challenges much of what we think is obvious about migration' Ian Morris, author of Why The West Rules - For Now------------------------------Authoritative and myth-busting, this is the one book you need to read to understand why we've been wrong about migration - perfect for fans of Tim Marshall's Prisoners of GeographyGlobal migration is not at an all-time high. Climate change will not lead to mass migration. Immigration mainly benefits the wealthy, not workers. Border restrictions have paradoxically produced more migration. These statements might sound counter-intuitive or just outright wrong - but the facts behind the headlines reveal a completely different story to the ones we're told about migration. In this ground-breaking and revelatory book, based on more than three decades of research, leading expert Professor Hein de Haas explodes myths from left to right that politicians, interest groups and media regularly spread about migration. 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In this book, Ryan Avent explores how an unswerving confidence in systems of liberal democracy and free market capitalism-which he terms the \"Modern Faith\"-has left many Western countries struggling to deal with democratic backsliding and social dysfunction. Those seeking the certainty of another technocratic solution, however, are searching in the wrong place. The true foundation of our prosperity, Avent argues, is not in an ability to reason our way to better policies and institutions but rather lies in the nature and distribution of our beliefs. Drawing from economics, history, philosophy, biology, and much else besides, Avent shows that our capacity for belief is what connects us, guides our behavior moment by moment and year by year, and determines how well we cooperate in the production of social and economic complexity. Far from standing in opposition to science and reason, faith is central to the human endeavor. By understanding the nature of faith and how it forms the fabric of our society, we can better find ways to come together to tackle the global crises of rising authoritarianism and climate change that threaten us all, and find hope within one another.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ryan Avent","offers":[{"title":"304 pages \/ 21\/04\/2026 \/ Political economy","offer_id":56966251184503,"sku":"9780300269925","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"9780300273007","title":"Can Europe Survive? : The Story of a Continent in a Fractured World - David Marsh","description":"\u003cp\u003eA bold new account of Europe's plight as it faces political fracture, economic stagnation and external challenges from the U.S., China and Russia � Today, Europe finds itself in a fast-changing, polarised world dominated by Chinese-American rivalry. The European Union and its surrounding nonmember states, despite initial successes after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have failed to implement a strategy for success in the twenty-first century. Britain's exit from the Union has weakened both sides, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has thrown these shortcomings into sharp relief. How should states across the continent position themselves in the decades to come? � Drawing on unpublished archives and interviews with over 150 leading figures, David Marsh investigates Europe's present crisis, from the march of populism, Franco-German malaise, and the breakdown of relations with Putin's Russia. Fault lines are emerging in the monetary union, while the fight against climate change has impacted growth. Facing its gravest test since the Second World War, Europe must find fresh reserves of resilience-and seek out renewed international partnerships to ensure success.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David Marsh","offers":[{"title":"528 pages \/ 14\/10\/2025 \/ Europe","offer_id":56966251446647,"sku":"9780300273007","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"9780300282399","title":"The Sealed Envelope : Toward an Intelligent Utopia - George Scialabba","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn award-winning author argues for the necessity of cultural critics and intellectuals to American democracy�This incisive collection of essays investigates the moral imagination of modernism and our intellectual and political inheritance. George Scialabba offers a series of portraits of, and arguments with, American and European thinkers of the past hundred years, ranging from conservatives such as John Gray, William Buckley, and Jonathan Haidt to radicals such as Dwight Macdonald, Christopher Hitchens, and Bill McKibben. In our moment of democracy under siege, with intellectual work popularly derided as only for \"elites,\" Scialabba champions such thinkers as Richard Rorty, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Christopher Lasch, with their emphasis on democratic political culture and their faith in the capacities of ordinary people and the importance of intellectual work. This collection passes on these values \"in a sealed envelope,\" as Rilke says of love between selfish lovers, for future generations to use in crafting their own \"intelligent utopia.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"George Scialabba","offers":[{"title":"296 pages \/ 20\/01\/2026 \/ Social \u0026 political philosophy","offer_id":56966258753911,"sku":"9780300282399","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780300282399.jpg?v=1783950687"},{"product_id":"9780300283266","title":"A Little History of Philosophy - Nigel Warburton","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lucid guide to humankind's greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to Peter Singer �� Philosophy begins with the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them just how little they genuinely understood. � This engaging Little History introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the universe and our place in it. Nigel Warburton guides us on a tour of the lives and work of thought-provoking philosophers - from the certainty of Descartes (`I think, therefore I am') to Hannah Arendt who examined crimes against humanity and taught us `the banality of evil'. �Little Histories - Inspiring Guides for Curious Minds\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nigel Warburton","offers":[{"title":"272 pages, 40 b-w illus. \/ 08\/04\/2025 \/ Popular philosophy","offer_id":56966261965175,"sku":"9780300283266","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780300283266.jpg?v=1783950685"},{"product_id":"9780349127446","title":"Virgin : 'Hollie McNish's words always sweep me away' Giovanna Fletcher - Hollie McNish","description":"\u003cp\u003eLike Pam Ayres on acid' LEMN SISSAY\u003cbr\u003e'Energising, fearless and joyful' SARA PASCOE\u003cbr\u003e'Hollie has such a wonderful voice. Warm, relatable, smart and funny' SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR\u003cbr\u003e'Funny, so smart and refreshingly honest' SARAH MILLICAN\u003cbr\u003e'One of the best poets we have' MATT HAIGVirgin snowVirgin mojitosVirgin motherVirgin MaryVirgin: one little six-letter word that holds such incredible power. The power to pressure, to judge, to harm, to praise, to profit, to punish. But virginity is also just a concept, a label that has been pressed upon people for centuries in numerous cultures worldwide. In this highly anticipated collection of poetry, Hollie McNish unpicks the role this word has played in her own life, as well as others, with her trademark mix of humour, fury and compassion. Whether considering if Mary was a fan of her own nickname, to rejoicing her annual excitement in ice cream vans, to looking back on how ridiculously she ate creamy mashed potato with her family after apparently 'losing' her own virginity, she examines in her own inimitable way the tracks this concept makes throughout so many minds, and the possibilities of freedom. At times hilarious, at times harrowing, always hopeful - a poetic love letter against the more nefarious effects of purity culture packed with stacks of honeycomb, hand holds and early morning light.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hollie McNish","offers":[{"title":"160 pages \/ 16\/10\/2025 \/ Society \u0026 social sciences","offer_id":56966352732535,"sku":"9780349127446","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780349127446.jpg?v=1783950807"},{"product_id":"9780349136646","title":"Do Not Go Gentle : The Case Against Assisted Death - Kathleen Stock","description":"\u003cp\u003eA TELEGRAPH SUMMER READ OF 2026\"Do Not Go Gentle is a bracing, often chilling wrestle with the ethical dilemmas surrounding the assisted death service - a deeply unsettling read, clear and powerful. Kathleen Stock remains fearless, endless, thought provoking and always entertaining.\" Nick Cave\u003cbr\u003e\"Characteristically sharp, clever and vital,\" Jane O\u003cbr\u003e'Grady, The Daily Telegraph\u003cbr\u003e\"Admirably clear and cogent... this is a polemic, but a polite one.\" Kathryn Hughes, The GuardianIs there a right to die? Is assisted death really compassionate? Are we sleepwalking into a moral disaster? In Do Not Go Gentle, acclaimed writer and philosopher Kathleen Stock tackles one of the great debates of our time: should we set up a system of assisted death? With her trademark sharp thinking and dry wit, the bestselling author of Material Girls argues that despite what some progressives might tell you, assisted death will not give a person more \"freedom\" or \"control\" over their lives. Whether you have a terminal illness, are in chronic pain, or are disabled, being able to ask your doctor to kill you fundamentally changes society's attitude towards the vulnerable - and in a sinister direction. Life is complex. For some individuals, an assisted death might be the right choice. But we should be deeply wary of introducing a system that offers death as just another option, especially when palliative care is so under-resourced. Expertly marshalling the arguments, Stock's laser polemic cuts through the wishful thinking and clouded reasoning that surrounds the issue and reaffirms life, rather than death, as what we should be fighting for. 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Topically arranged commentaries and interpretations-seventy-eight in all, thirty-nine of them new to the Second Edition-from classic assessments to current scholarship. A glossary of names and suggestions for further reading.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gordon Teskey","offers":[{"title":"624 pages \/ 05\/10\/2020 \/ Literary studies: poetry \u0026 poets","offer_id":56966560153975,"sku":"9780393617085","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0682\/9454\/1624\/files\/9780393617085.jpg?v=1783951281"},{"product_id":"9780399579745","title":"Save the Cat! 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Of recent leaders there have been alcoholics, depressives, narcissists, populists and those affected by hubris syndrome and driven by their religious beliefs. But Donald Trump, a world class narcissist, presents a very different set of issues, as does Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, also discussed in this revised edition. A trained physician and neuroscientist, David Owen is uniquely qualified to assess Trump and Johnson in their political, philosophical and medical contexts. Both are `populists' and both have been economical with the truth. Trump is an inveterate user of social media and some of his `Tweets' have been branded as outrageous and totally inappropriate for an American President. In 2020 he has faced an impeachment trial and in November will face the electorate as he seeks a second term. Boris Johnson's premiership is in its infancy. He has concluded the UK's exit from the EU but now has much to achieve to fulfil the promises made to the electorate in 2019, which gave an eighty seat majority to the Conservative party. Both Trump and Johnson have major roles to play in 2020. Trump's Middle East initiative, his attempts to quell the tension with Iran and North Korea and his plans for trade with China, will define his first four years. Johnson's focus must be on maintaining the United Kingdom, implementing new trade deals, worldwide, post Brexit and addressing the NHS, regional development and defence spending. The likely success of both President and Prime Minister is assessed by David Owen in his customarily incisive way and the book is an essential read for all with an interest in politics and the psychology of world leaders. David Owen is the author of several acclaimed books on politics, political history and the health of world leaders. He qualified as a doctor in 1962, was a Labour MP from 1966-81, an SDP MP from 1981-92 and from 1992 sat in the House of Lords as an Independent Social Democrat. He held several government posts under Wilson and Callaghan, the last as Foreign Secretary. 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H. Auden and the Last of Englishness - Nicholas Jenkins","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner of the 2024 Warren-Brooks Award for Outstanding Literary CriticismWinner of the Northern California Book Award for General Nonfiction'The Island makes an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of both Auden's intentions and his achievement in the first part of his writing life.' Andrew Motion, New Statesman\u003cbr\u003e'Jenkins, miner-like, digs down into the verse and brings every influence up to the surface . . . a richly striated landscape, not only in complexity of mood, but also courtesy of its cast of strange, dazzling and sometimes highly dubious characters.' Rachel Cooke, ObserverNicholas Jenkins's The Island is daring in its ideas, written with loving tenderness and implacably true in its revisionism. Jenkins shows Auden's mentality to have been graven by the Great War, proves his youthful aspiration to become an English national poet and renews our sense of the numinous.' Richard Davenport-Hines, TLS, Books of the Year'[The Island is] a dense, detailed and hugely rewarding account of the making of this very English poet before he became an American one.' Peter Parker, TLS Books of the Year\u003cbr\u003e'In The Island (Faber, �25), an epic study of the young W.H. Auden, Nicholas Jenkins brilliantly scales up fine-grained literary criticism into wide-angled cultural history.' Boyd Tonkin, SpectatorA groundbreaking reassessment of W. H. Auden's early life and poetry, shedding new light on his artistic development as well as on his shifting beliefs about political belonging in interwar England. W. H. Auden is a towering figure in modern literary history with a complex private self. Hannah Arendt wrote that he had 'the necessary secretiveness of the great poet'. The Island lays bare for the first time some of the most telling 'secrets' of Auden's early poetry, his world, his emotional life, his values and the sources of his art. In a book that is an argument but also a story, Nicholas Jenkins gives compelling readings of iconic poems. He presents Auden in the inter-War years as both a visionary writer, creatively dependent on dreams and intuitions, and a traumatized poet, haunted by war and suffering, and shadowed by his outsider status as a privileged but queer man. The Island considers, as well, Auden's imaginative flirtations with a lyrical nationalism appealing to a poet who, for a while, felt his psyche was like a map of English culture. The narrative ends in Auden's disillusionment with these potent myths and beliefs and the time when he left 'the island'. Auden's preoccupations - with the vicissitudes of war and the problems of love, belonging and identity - are of their time but they still resonate profoundly today. 'A superb, deeply researched study of Auden's early work and identity. Jenkins's understanding of young Auden as a poet shaped and haunted by the First World War - assimilating the influence of Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, and W. H. R. Rivers - is convincing, original, and poignant. Fusing biography, cultural history, and literary criticism in innovative and elegant ways, The Island is a landmark publication in modernist studies.'Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath'Nicholas Jenkins is one of our most perceptive and resourceful critics. In this wonderful study of the early Auden, he brings to bear history, biography, and an acute sense of the artistic moment to fashion for us a young genius who is conservative, bucolic, gay, a patriotic adherent of post-imperial Little England. Most people work backwards from a writer's ultimate reputation, but Jenkins gives us a new, unexpected image of a poet developing in the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of modernism.'Edmund White, author of The Humble Lover\u003cbr\u003e'The Island is a Copernican Revolution in Auden studies, a revelatory and often exciting book that presents a new and convincing account of Auden's early years. It explores, for the first time, the deep connections between the inner workings of his poems and the worlds of politics and economics. 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