Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the farmer to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death
Originally published in 1930, this classic of modern Shakespeare criticism proves both enlightening and innovative. Standing head and shoulders above all other Shakespearean interpretations,Wheel of F
Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day a powerful and fascinating read. Weber's highly acce
First written by Marcel Mauss and Henri Humbert in 1902, A General Theory of Magic gained a wide new readership when republished by Mauss in 1950. As a study of magic in 'primitive' societies and its
As Bowlby himself points out in his introduction to this seminal childcare book, to be a successful parent means a lot of very hard work. Giving time and attention to children means sacrificing other
For the past four decades Frank Kermode, critic and writer, has steadily established himself as one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. Questioning the public's harsh perception of 'the art
Helping both parents and psychologists to arrive at a better understanding of the inner emotional world of the infant, this selection of key lectures by Bowlby includes the seminal one that gives the
Who is more important: the reader, or the writer? Originally published in French in 1966, Pierre Macherey’s first and most famous work,A Theory of Literary Production dared to challenge perceived wisd
Widely acknowledged to be one of Freud's greatest cultural works, when Totem and Taboo was first published in 1913, it caused outrage. Thorough and thought-provoking, Totem and Taboo remains the fulle
When he was 26, the great psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm abandoned Judaism, though he himself was descended from a long line of rabbis and the product of a devout Jewish upbringing. The tit
When one defines "order" as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He di
Paul Ricoeur is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. In The Rule of Metaphor he seeks 'to show how language can extend itself to its very limits, forever dis
Griselda Pollock provides concrete historical analyses of key moments in the formation of modern culture to reveal the sexual politics at the heart of modernist art. Crucially, she not only explores a
William Blake is a poet without parallel, who remains a source of wisdom and inspiration to countless individuals throughout the world. This selection was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Ro
Being and Nothingness is without doubt one of the most significant books of the twentieth century. The central work by one of the world's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western ph
While there have been a number of descriptions and interpretations of boys' initiation rituals, Audrey Richards's classic study of initiation rites among the Bemba remains one of the few studies to de
Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, Phenomenology of Perception is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the b
Being and Nothingness is without doubt one of the most significant books of the twentieth century. The central work by one of the world's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western ph
Émile Durkheim is one of the founding fathers of sociology and Professional Ethics and Civic Morals is one of his most neglected yet insightful works. Durkheim's view that the instability of indu
