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Book SynopsisStephen Trombley's Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World traces the development of modern thought through a sequence of accessible profiles of the most influential thinkers in every domain of intellectual endeavour since 1789. No major representative of post-Enlightenment thought escapes Trombley's attention: the German idealists Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; founders of new fields of inquiry such as Weber, Durkheim and C.S. Peirce; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead and Wittgenstein; political leaders from Mohandas K. Gandhi to Adolf Hitler; and - last but not least - the four shapers-in-chief of our modern world: the philosopher, historian and political theorist Karl Marx; the naturalist Charles Darwin, proposer of the theory of evolution; Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis; and the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, begetter of the special and general theories of relativity and founder of post-Newtonian physics.Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World offers a crisp analysis of their key ideas, and in some cases a re-evaluation of their importance as we proceed into the 21st century.

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Book SynopsisSet on Idan Hayosh’s peculiar Instagram page of women holding dead fish, The Instagram Archipelago is a conversation with contemporary culture’s logics of gender and race. Working through recent thinking in Black studies and Hayosh’s satirical images, Elliot C. Mason presents the aesthetics of capitalism as a sea that makes everything the same, turning the world into a single form. The Instagram Archipelago brings radical antiracist and feminist scholarship to a general audience, applying a model of thinking beyond gender and race to the strange world of online fishing photos. This funny and fascinating book moves past the liberal celebration of gender and race, towards a tiny island of resistance in a growing archipelago.

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Book SynopsisAdditional Prefaces from Hazel Henderson, Randeep Sudan, and new additional original material has been added in each chapter. New material has a particular focus on the impact of Covid-19 and its influence, which has gone beyond the fields of health and hygiene, deeply impacting the economic, social and even geopolitical affairs worldwide, subverting many aspects of the traditional market economy and disrupting social norms. This unexpected disaster is forcing human beings to rethink the axioms of what has long called “civilization.” find ways to coexist with other creatures who share the earth, and change many of our long-established behaviour patterns, including lifestyle, working practices and diet. The world ushered in explosive technology development, giving human beings unlimited opportunities and reverie. At the same time, mankind faces a deeper crisis - beyond the climate change, ecological environment, the gap between rich and poor, regional conflicts and terrorist threats that people already recognize. That is the human evolution crisis, science and technology crisis and human civilization crisis brought by the development and application of technology, which makes us stand at the crossroads in the history of human civilization. This book calls on human beings to prepare for the future - to actively promote the transformation of Industrial Civilization, to promote the progress of human civilization, to meet Global Civilization and even Great Civilization. Zhouying Jin contends that if human beings who share an earth cannot correctly grasp the direction of human evolution; if they cannot alter their destructive relationship with nature, and abandon “people-centred” and ‘’self-centred” thinking everywhere; if they cannot alleviate the threat of war and terrorism “as soon as possible” through the sublimation and perfection of human nature, and create a more advanced civilization; if they cannot deal with the planet’s common crises - climate change, species extinction, land and food shortages, water pollution, etc.; in short, if they cannot correctly learn the lessons of the current global catastrophe caused by the COVID-19; if they cannot promote the real awakening of all mankind; and cooperate to establish a new world order and accelerate the pace of civilizational transformation, then indeed the human race is doomed to move toward self-destruction long before the dangers posed by gene-enhanced Super-beings or robots endowed with artificial intelligence robots ever emerge. Primary audience will be at university level across a broad range of subjects and disciplines, wherever students are studying topics connected to the future of mankind and the world.Table of ContentsForeword I Theodore Jay Gordon Foreword II Hazel Henderson Foreword III Randeep Sudan Foreword IV Guangbi Dong Foreword V Lane Jennings Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Deep Concern over the Direction of Technology Development 2. The Crisis in Human Civilization Driven by the Theory of Scientific and Technological Omnipotence 3. What Is Technology? 4. What Kind of Civilization Should Human Beings Pursue? 5. The Difficult Task of Creating a Global Civilization 6. Can Humans Eventually Create a Great Civilization? 7. Integrate the Values of Global Civilization into the Practice of Sustainable Development—The Example of China 8. The Responsibility of Our Generation References Notes on the Author

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Book SynopsisThese days, Geoff Parton resides in Tasmania with his wife, but over the years his life has been nothing short of an adventure. With highs and lows that have brought him all over the world, he sheds a light on his spiritual philosophy and connection with the world by recounting the many tales he must tell; all so that we can come to realise that it''s all down to us as a collective. We have the power necessary to change things. We can think negatively about each other, and if the thought is strong enough, we create war, as is happening right now. We can change this by thinking positively. Depending on the number of people collectively thinking about the same thing at the same time, we can change things straight away so let''s do it!

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Book SynopsisA crucial text at the intersection of history and philosophy in twentieth-century Italy. On December 29, 1918, the Spartakus League, a Marxist revolutionary movement, rose up in Germany calling for an end to class rule by the bourgeoisie. Massive demonstrations followed and more than 500,000 Berliners took to the streets in January—only to be crushed by police and anticommunist paramilitary troops. Several leaders of the Spartakus League were killed and the revolt was quashed. Through a detailed reconstruction of the events of that bloody winter, historian and critic Furio Jesi recasts our understanding of a foundational political difference—revolt or revolution? Drawing on a deep reserve of literary sources like Brecht, Eliade, Dostoyevsky, and Mann, Jesi outlines a uniquely incisive phenomenology of revolt that distinguishes between the purposeful historical temporality of revolution and the suspension of time that marks a revolt. This edition also includes an essay on the politics of time and revolution by Rosa Luxemburg, a founding leader of the Spartakus League.Trade Review“Jesi always manages to stamp out the barriers between the categories on which the fragile certainties of Italian ideology had been based: rationalism/irrationalism; myth/history; laicism/religiousness; left/ right; militant criticism/academia.” -- Giorgio AgambenTable of ContentsIntroductionAndrea CavallettiSubversion and MemoryThe Suspension of Historical TimeThe Symbols of PowerDrums in the NightThe Untimeliness of Revolt Appendix 1Appendix 2

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Book SynopsisReligion, Race, Multiculturalism, and Everyday Life takes a spirited conceptualist look back into the history of our development. The book sets out to explore the ways in which a punditry of human equality continues to lock in unassailably assured logical postures, enabled by the historically intertwined roles played by power and the passage of time, towards the invention and sustenance of social truth. Religion, race, and multiculturalism have been written about many times, and from a variety of academic, discipline-specific perspectives. Nonetheless, these social issues remain ever relevant to any sincere bid to understand the inegalitarian aspects of modern society. Religion, Race, Multiculturalism, and Everyday Life was primarily written with serious students of philosophy, sociology, the humanities, and history in mind. The author contends that we should never be too afraid to explore contentious or difficult philosophical and social questions.

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Book SynopsisCecil Jenkins provides a coherent analysis of the interlocking challenges confronting humans, the younger generation most directly, on this small planet. While firmly backed by research, it is written with humour within a teasing framework and in an easy conversational style.After sketching the cosmic accidents that created the planet, killed off the dinosaurs and made way for the modern human to evolve into the only creature to know that it will die', Cecil begins with the successive lotteries determining conception, gender, physical appearance and the interplay of Nature and Nurture.This leads directly to the family, with its often-testing dynamics and its birth order stereotypes, which are then viewed in relation to wealth, social class, political change and indeed to the many conflicting religions and ideologies.Having proceeded against this background to examine the changing nature of relationships, both social and intimate, he moves finally to the major challenges now facing our species: the life-or-death question of climate change, the promising yet menacing onset of artificial intelligence, and the mysterious dark matter and energy that reduce our area of understanding to 5% of the universe.After looking at changing views of death, he ends on a note of cautious optimism.

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Book SynopsisLatin America and Existentialism is a preliminary intellectual history, prioritising literature and contextualising Latin American philosophical contributions from the 1860s to the late 1930s, decades that coincide with the canon’s foundational years. This study takes a Pan-American approach to move the critical focus away from the River Plate, a region that has received some critical attention. In doing so, it focuses on existentially-neglected writers such as Brazil’s Machado de Assis and Graciliano Ramos, José Asunción Silva from Colombia, Cuba’s Enrique Labrador Ruiz, and the Chilean María Luisa Bombal. Underappreciated Latin American philosophical voices and existentialism’s canonical perspectives allow the author to discuss the many problems concerning the experiencing ‘I’ of these authors, and to consider such existential themes as ethical vacuity, forlornness, the crisis of insufficiency, the conundrum of choice, and the enigma of authentic being. The concentration on Latin America’s existentially-hued interest in the human condition is an invitation to the reader to reconsider the peripheral status in the existentialism canon.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Latin America and Existentialism: An Introduction 2. Machado de Assis and the Art of Existential Deciphering 3. José Fernández as Modernity’s Impossible Patient 4. The Existential Exegete in Enrique Labrador Ruiz’s El laberinto de sí mismo 5. María Luisa Bombal and the Poetics of Inconformity 6. The Burden of Anonymity: Existential Toxicosis in Graciliano Ramos’s Angústia 7. Latin America and Existentialism: An Interlude Works Cited

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Book Synopsis''Often poetic ... highly-researched and thought-provoking'' New Scientist''Gently and thoughtfully enquiring'' The SpectatorCan you remember the first time you encountered true darkness? The kind that remains as black and inky whether your eyes are open or closed? Where you can''t see your hand in front of your face?Jacqueline Yallop can. It was in an unfamiliar bedroom while holidaying in Yorkshire as a child, and ever since then she has been fascinated by the dark, by our efforts to capture or avoid it, by the meanings we give to it and the way our brains process it.Taking a journey into the dark secrets of place, body and mind, she documents a series of night-time walks, exploring both the physical realities of darkness and the psychological dark that helps shape our sense of self. Exploring our enduring love-hate relationship with states of darkness, she considers how we attempt to understand and contain the dark, and, as she comes to terms with her father''s deteriorating Alzheim

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Book SynopsisThe essays in Logos and Life, mainly dating from 2014 and later, cover topics in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ethics and philosophy of language. There are numerous strands connecting these four areas, which Roger Teichmann highlights: in this sense the collection exhibits thematic unity as well as diversity. Several of the essays take as their starting points the ideas and philosophical methods of Wittgenstein and of Elizabeth Anscombe, and so will be of interest to anyone studying those philosophers. A newly written Introduction serves to indicate the main themes and arguments of the book, and provides an overall statement of Teichmann’s philosophy.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I: Mind Chapter One The Functionalist’s Inner State; Chapter Two ‘Not a Something’; Chapter Three Sincerity in Thought; Chapter Four Is Pleasure a Good?; Part II: Action Chapter Five The Voluntary and the Involuntary: Themes from Anscombe; Chapter Six Rational Choice Theory and Backward- Looking Motives; Chapter Seven Meaning, Understanding and Action; Chapter Eight Why ‘Why?’? Action, Reasons and Language; Part III Ethics Chapter Nine Ethics and Philosophy: Aristotle and Wittgenstein Compared; Chapter Ten ‘How Should One Live?’ Williams on Practical Deliberation and Reasons for Acting; Chapter Eleven ‘An Inculcated Caring’: Ryle on Moral Knowledge; Chapter Twelve Are There Any Intrinsically Unjust Acts?; Part IV Language Chapter Thirteen The Identity of a Word; Chapter Fourteen Ryle on Hypotheticals; Chapter Fifteen Metaphysics and Modals; Chapter Sixteen Conceptual Corruption; Sources; Index.

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Book SynopsisWhat do conspiracy theories, algorithms and meritocracy have in common? All three avoid contingency and frantically look for necessities. The COVID-19 crisis has brought about a proliferation of conspiracy theories that reject, among other things, official accounts of the virus's origins and remedies, and sometimes even the existence of the virus itself. Conspiratorial thinking usually links events to secret plots concocted by powerful conspirators, whether it be Bill Gates or Big Pharma. In this book, I point to another dominant driving force: the desire to find simple and apparently reasonable explanations for phenomena that are actually purely random and contingent. Often, unfounded conspiracy theories emerge because contingency is not accepted, and necessities are looked for at all costs. Nothing happens by chance, and there must be a plan or an intelligent design behind everything.This book deals with contingency phobia'. This special phobia is not only manifest in most unwarranted conspiracy theories, but it also appears, in Western culture, as a recurrent psychological, cognitive and scientific pattern. It is the cause of a variety of other phenomena that have become emblematic for liberal democracies, such as the contemporary algorithm culture or the obsession with merit and ranking. Not only the conspiratorial mindset rejects a world of contingency and strives to create a universe structured by a necessary order; life coaches, algorithm engineers and neoliberal meritocrats all do the same. This book analyses these phenomena by using the same criteria: how do humans deal with contingency and how do they try to establish necessities?Some philosophies, such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism, make unwarranted conspiracy theories quasi-impossible because they find original ways of combining contingency with ontological, theological or cosmological premises. I identify sources that other disciplines examining conspiracy theories, for example, political science, anthropology, psychology or sociology, have rarely seen as primary. Political scientists focus on the macro level and construe conspiracy theories mostly as national or regional phenomena whereas anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists tend to focus on the micro level. The present study is an example of practical philosophy depicting conspiratorial thinking as an organic or a dynamic phenomenon by crystallising cognitive and cultural necessity-contingency patterns' that can be found in politics, culture, religion and science.

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Book SynopsisPostcolonialism offers challenging and provocative ways of thinking about colonial and neocolonial power, about self and other, and about the discourses that perpetuate postcolonial inequality and violence. Much of the seminal work in postcolonialism has been shaped by currents in philosophy, notably Marxism and ethics. "Understanding Postcolonialism" examines the philosophy of postcolonialism in order to reveal the often conflicting systems of thought which underpin it. In so doing, the book presents a reappraisal of the major postcolonial thinkers of the twentieth century.Ranging beyond the narrow selection of theorists to which the field is often restricted, the book explores the work of Fanon and Sartre, Gandhi, Nandy, and the Subaltern Studies Group, Foucault and Said, Derrida and Bhabha, Khatibi and Glissant, and Spivak, Mbembe and Mudimbe. A clear and accessible introduction to the subject, "Understanding Postcolonialism" reveals how, almost half a century after decolonisation, the complex relation between politics and ethics continues to shape postcolonial thought.Trade Review"Essential reading for all scholars and students in the postcolonial field. A concise and timely introduction to the philosophical underpinnings of anti-colonial and postcolonial criticism and a significant intervention in the field." - Charles Forsdick, University of Liverpool "A fresh and lucid presentation of major strands in postcolonial thought from Gandhi onward, including a clear presentation for the non-expert of the poststructuralist philosophical background necessary for understanding current debates." - Lynda Lange, University of Toronto"Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Fanon and Sartre: Colonial Manichaeism and the Call to Arms 3. Decolonisation, Community, Nationalism: Gandhi, Nandy, and the Subaltern Studies Collective 4. Foucault and Said: Colonial Discourse and Orientalism 5. Derrida and Bhabha: Self, Other, and Postcolonial Ethics 6. Khatibi and Glissant: Postcolonial Ethics and the Return to Place 7. Ethics with Politics? Spivak, Mudimbe, Mbembe 8. Conclusion: Neocolonialism and the Future of the Discipline Questions for discussion and revision Guide to further reading Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFrom the 1920s to the 1980s Oakeshott filled dozens of notebooks with his private reflections, both personal and intellectual. Their contents range from aphorisms to miniature essays, forming a unique record of his intellectual trajectory over his entire career. This volume makes them accessible in print for the first time, drawing together a host of his previously inaccessible observations on politics, philosophy, art, education, and much else besides. Religion in particular emerges as an ongoing concern for him in a way that is not visible from his published works.The notebooks also provide a unique source of insight into Oakeshott''s musings on life, thanks to the hitherto unsuspected existence of the series of ''Belle Dame'' notebooks that were written in the late 1920s and early 1930s but which only came to light two decades after his death. At the same period in which he was developing the concepts that would form Experience and its Modes, Oakeshott's personal life lead him to reflect extensively on love and death, themes that highlight his enduring romantic affinities.Accompanied by an original editorial introduction, the volume allows readers to see for themselves exactly which works Oakeshott used in compiling each of his notebooks, providing a much clearer record of his intellectual influences than has previously been available. It will be an essential addition to the library of his works for all those interested in his ideas.

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Book SynopsisKeynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (published in February 1936) is probably the most influential and controversial economics book of the twentieth century. Keynes claimed to have undermined the foundations of orthodox economics and to have developed a radically new way of thinking about unemployment. This volume brings together forty of the reviews published before the end of 1936, showing how a wide range of economists and political and literary figures responded to the book. Here we have perspectives on Keynesian economics that are untainted by the work of subsequent interpreters. 'Nowadays when we read Keynes's General Theory, we do so through a mist of literally hundreds of commentaries. Here is a book that allows us to travel backwards in time to witness what people said about the General Theory when it was still new and uncontaminated by secondary opinion.' - Mark Blaug, author of Economic Theory in RetrospectTable of Contentsnotes, bibliography, index

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Book SynopsisIn this stimulating and still-timely study, Josef Pieper takes up a theme of paramount importance to his thinking – that festivals belong by rights among the great topics of philosophical discussion. As he develops his theory of festivity, the modern age comes under close and painful scrutiny. It is obvious that we no longer know what festivity is, namely, the celebration of existence under various symbolsPieper exposes the pseudo-festivals, in their harmless and their sinister forms: traditional feasts contaminated by commercialism; artificial holidays created in the interest of merchandisers; holidays by coercion, decreed by dictators the world over; festivals as military demonstrations; holidays empty of significance. And lastly we are given the apocalyptic vision of a nihilistic world which would seek its release not in festivities but in destruction.Formulated with Pieper's customary clarity and elegance, enhanced by brilliantly chosen quotations, this is an illuminating contribution to the understanding of traditional and contemporary experience.

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Book SynopsisAn intense, lyrical, witty, and humane exploration of a state we too often consider only superficially. At once philosophical and poetical, Insomnia ranges widely over history and culture, literature and art, exploring a threshold experience that is intimately involved with trespass and contamination: the illicit importing of day into night. Trade Review'Every insomniac knows how sleeplessness warps and deforms reality. Marina Benjamin anatomises its endless nights and red-eyed mornings, finding a sublime language for this strange state of lack. Her writing is often reminiscent of Anne Carson: beautiful, jagged and precise.' -- Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City‘A sublime view of the treasures and torments to be found in wakefulness. Entertaining and existential, the brightest star in this erudite, nocturnal reverie in search of lost sleep, is the beauty of the writing itself.’ -- Deborah Levy, author of Hot Milk‘Marina Benjamin is the Scheherazade of sleeplessness, spinning tale upon tale, insight upon insight, in frayed and astonishing and finally ecstatic loops.’ -- Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill‘Benjamin writes beautifully. This is a graceful rumination on the ‘wicked kind of trespass’ that is insomnia, a work cogent and allusive as a lucid dream, a palimpsest of insights to dip into, day or night.’ -- Anna Funder author of Stasiland and All That I Am‘Insomnia reads with the surreal and suspended cadence of those lonely hours in the night that only the sleep-less experience. It is, therefore, a kind and intimate companion to our meandering, agitated, non-knowing, spiritually naked thoughts at such hours. Keep it by your bedside lamp!’ -- Sarah Wilson, author of First, We Make the Beast Beautiful‘Will nurture you at any wakeful hour.' -- Joanne Limburg‘A few years ago, I signed up for a sleep therapy group that was strikingly similar to the one Benjamin goes through for her own insomnia in her aptly named book Insomnia. What was most unsettling about this group was our sleep therapist's insistence that our individual struggles with sleep were neither as exceptional nor as debilitating as we insisted they were. With seemingly no way out of our sleepless nights, we had chosen to burnish them and, as Benjamin quotes from a shrink, we fell “in love with our neuroses”. What Benjamin accomplishes with her book is to capture the contradiction of not wanting to be alone and wanting to be the only one that so many insomniacs experience. Writing not just about her own experience, but of fellow insomniacs throughout history, she seems to argue that insomnia gifts as much as it robs, and that insomniacs are, in the end, as protective of their sleeplessness as the snippets of rest they manage to steal. Having finished her book, I am happier to belong to this particular clan. To lie awake in solidarity.’ -- Lillian Li, author of Number One Chinese Restaurant‘Benjamin’s impassioned and elegant memoir is not just an intimate account of a disorder for which there is still no straightforward cure, but a defiant celebration of its paradoxical potential … This provocative, at times anguished book has by the end completely overthrown our expectations by repositioning insomnia as a form of resistance, linked to the author’s own freedom to create.’ -- Elizabeth Lowry * The Guardian *‘Anyone who has suffered through the wide-eyed hell of a sleepless night will find something painfully recognisable in Marina Benjamin’s searingly honest memoir about her years battling for rest … Insomnia has a dreamlike quality, structured as a series of fragmented and sometimes unrelated thoughts and memories … [There are] moments of stunning poetry, suddenly interrupted by passages of fevered introspection … At its heart this is a book about desire, and the constant dynamic tussle between hunger and satiation. What does it mean to exist on the threshold of darkness and light?’ -- Lucy Hunter Johnston * Evening Standard *‘A genre of memoir currently in vogue involves entwining the author’s personal story with the cultural history of a given phenomenon, so that each may illuminate the other. Mellow introspection and anecdotal whimsy are spliced with tidbits of cultural criticism … Benjamin’s is a refreshingly grounded and sanguine voice.’ -- Houman Barekat * The Spectator *‘A beautiful book to keep you awake.’ -- Philip Hoare‘Clever, wise and witty — and ever so slightly cosmic too. This is for us who know what it is to be forlorn at 3am ...’ * Shahidha Bari *‘A wonderful, sometimes painful compendium of thoughts about sleeplessness and its meanings. I recognised its nocturnal terrain.’ -- Gerard Woodward‘This is a really wonderful book — good for night owls too, even if you are not an insomniac. And just for those who are interested in the imagination and creativity.’ -- Diana Henry‘Marina Benjamin’s slim meditation on sleeplessness makes for interesting bedtime reading … Art, philosophy and science jostle together, the fragments flowing in and out of each other. Things that seem unrelated on the surface become entwined with one another.’ * Oh Comely *‘As well as a very personal account, it is also a very idiosyncratic cultural history of sleeplessness, a poetic meditation on what we lose and what we gain from these unwilled encounters with brute night. The fragmented structure fits well with the subject, and Benjamin is excellent at describing the jagged loops and whirrs of a mind failing to find rest.’ -- Ella Walker * The Herald *‘A beautiful, lyrical and intelligent memoir that examines those hours in which we lie awake in the dark … this is an elevating and illuminating read about that experience. So next time you can’t sleep, reach for this book.’ -- Marta Bausells, ‘Book Club’ * Elle *‘[Insomnia is] a memoir in roving fragments that mirror the workings of a sleepless mind.’ -- Lilly Dancyger * Vulture *‘It’s a book about insomnia’s existential and somatic qualities … Insomnia is a striking reminder of how strange we remain to ourselves. We spend a third of our lives in sleep, but our relationship with that condition is, as Benjamin describes it, “perverse” and “fundamentally embattled”. Read this at night at your own peril.’ * The Saturday Paper *‘Reading Marina Benjamin’s memoir, Insomnia, has made me feel less alone in all that sleeplessness. She has made me feel seen … Insomnia is a lyrical, thoughtful meditation on sleeplessness. It’s about Odysseus and Penelope, Oedipus and Athena, Nabokov and Gilgamesh, and Rumi and Robinson Crusoe. It’s about art and literature and mythology and creativity and productivity and peace. It’s not about fixing it so much as understanding it. It’s a book to make you feel less alone.' * Refinery29 *‘Ought to be read not as self-help, but as an addition to that venerable philosophical genre, the consolation. It might keep you awake, but in solving and inquiring company’ -- Brian Dillon * 4Columns *‘Rich with imagery … One does not read it in a linear sense as dip in to absorb it piece by piece. Like the consciousness of the insomniac, it feels unmoored by temporal reality.’ -- Nicky Woolf * New Statesman *‘For anyone sleep deprived, this will offer unexpected comforts.’ * Saga Magazine *‘Elegant.’ -- Colin Grant * The Observer *‘A darkly thrilling beauty of a book … Benjamin’s talent is Arachne-like. The materials she integrates are eclectic, and the resulting constructed web of her thoughts is architecturally robust and resplendent with dazzling prose.’ -- Tali Lavi * Australian Book Review *‘A short, ludic book about long white nights ... [Benjamin] writes feelingly about the frustrations of being awake when you don’t want to be ... Her moans about her futile thought-loops alternate with flattering descriptions of her radiant nocturnal consciousness.’ -- Zoë Heller * The New Yorker *‘Insomnia is not so much a lament for lost oblivion as a defiant hymn to the wild isle of Insomnia.’ -- Fiona Capp * Sydney Morning Herald *‘Whatever the roots of her insomnia, in this book, Marina Benjamin embraces her condition and effects an alchemical transformation of it into something rich and strange … Benjamin’s willingness to look at her world “at a tilt” allows her vision of profusion and creative potentiality to illuminate, and set against, the terrors of the night.’ -- Howard Cooper * Jewish Chronicle *‘[Insomnia] will provoke you to think more deeply about sleeping and wakefulness — the mythology and politics of something we take for granted, until it eludes us.’ -- Sarah Ditum * In The Moment *‘Candid … thought-provoking.’ * New Books *‘Conjuring a spell over those dark hours that threaten to overtake her, Benjamin’s writing, like Scheherazade’s fables, manipulates and even dispels time. One finishes her book as if emerging, ironically, out of a dream: we cannot say how long it lasted, only that the sensation will, we hope, stay with us for a while.’ -- Rajat Singh * The Rumpus *‘Velvety ruminations on night wakefulness ... Benjamin’s mind works like a wide-roving trawler that rakes an area repeatedly before moving on to adjacent territory ... Insomnia turns out to be somewhat of a celebration of sleeplessness as well as a lament ... and is filled with memorable images.’ -- Heller McAlpin * NPR *‘A work that takes its structure from the insomniac’s mind, flitting restlessly between ideas to build what may be described as a philosophical portrait of sleeplessness ... This strange, entrancing book is in many ways a love letter, albeit one to a particularly irritating lover. Benjamin wants, she writes, “to flip disruption and affliction into opportunity, and puncture the darkness with stabs of light”.’ -- Jane McCredie * Weekend Australian *'Best read at those hours of night when sleep is elusive, this magical book is a series of meditations and cultural explorations into a state that at some time affects us all.' -- Thomas Arnold Fanning, author of Mind on FirePraise for The Middlepause: ‘Benjamin has conjured something philosophically poised and poetic from an unlikely subject, as much about the sanctuary of place and coming to terms with time, seasons and life’s cycles, and all rendered with clarity and calm.’ * The Saturday Age *Praise for The Middlepause: ‘Lucid and sophisticated … A restrained but wonderful guide to the convulsive changes of 50 and over … This is a book that yields valuable insights on almost every page.’ * The Guardian *Praise for The Middlepause: ‘Women do a lot of things to mark turning fifty. Go to a resort! Have a bang-up party! Far, far better: read The Middlepause.’ * Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman *

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Book SynopsisUnderstandings of freedom are often discussed in moral, theological, legal and political terms, but they are not often set in a historical perspective, and they are even more rarely considered within their specific language context.

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Book SynopsisFew historians trace grand themes across many centuries and places, but Ernst Kantorowicz's great work on the symbolic powers of kingship is a fine example of what can happen when they do. The King's Two Bodies is at once a superb example of the critical thinking skill of evaluation – assessing huge quantities of evidence, both written and visual, and drawing sound comparative conclusions from it – and of creative thinking; the work connects art history, literature, legal records and historical documents together in innovative and revealing ways across more than 800 years of history. Kantorowicz's key conclusions (that history is at root about ideas, that these ideas power institutions, and that both are commonly expressed and understood through symbols) have had a profound impact on several different disciplines, and even underpin many works of popular fiction – not least The DaVinci Code. And they were all made possible by fresh evaluation of evidence that other historians had ignored, or could not see the significance of.Table of ContentsWays In to the Text Who was Ernst H. Kantorowicz? What does The King's Two Bodies Say? Why does The King's Two Bodies Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisRobert O. Keohane’s After Hegemony is both a classic of international relations scholarship and an example of how creative thinking can help shed new light on the world. Since the end of World War II, the global political landscape had been dominated by two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, and the tense stand-off of the Cold War. But, as the Cold War began to thaw, it became clear that a new global model might emerge. The commonly held belief amongst those studying international relations was that it was impossible for nations to work together without the influence of a hegemon (a dominant international power) to act as both referee and ultimate decision-maker. This paradigm – neorealism – worked on the basis that every nation will do all it can to maximize its power, with such processes only checked by a balance of competing powers. Keohane, however, examined the evidence afresh and came up with novel explanations for what was likely to come next. He went outside the dominant paradigm, and argued for what came to be known as the neoliberal conception of international politics. States, Keohane said, can and will cooperate without the influence of a hegemonic power, so long as doing so brings them absolute gains in the shape of economic and cultural benefits. In Keohane’s highly-creative view, the pursuit of national self-interest leads naturally to international cooperation – and to the formation of global regimes (such as the United Nations) that can reinforce and foster it.Table of ContentsWays In to the Text Who was Robert O. Keohane? What does After Hegemony Say? Why does After Hegemony Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisSimone de Beauvoir’s 1949 book The Second Sex is a masterpiece of feminist criticism and philosophy. An incendiary take on the place of women in post-war French society, it helped define major trends in feminist thought for the rest of the 20th century, and its influence is still felt today. The book’s success owes much to Beauvoir’s brilliant writing style and passion, but both are rooted in the clarity of her critical thinking skills. She builds a strong argument against the silent assumptions that continually demoted (and still demote) women to “second place” in a society dominated by men. Beauvoir also demonstrates the central skills of reasoning at their best: presenting a persuasive case, organising her thoughts, and supporting her conclusions. Above all, though, The Second Sex is a masterclass in analysis. Treating the structures of contemporary society and culture as a series of arguments that tend continuously to demote women, Beauvoir is able to isolate and describe the implicit assumptions that underpin male domination. Her demolition of these assumptions provides the crucial ammunition for her argument that women are in no way the “second” sex, but are in every way the equal of men.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was Simone de Beauvoir? What does The Second Sex Say? Why does The Second Sex Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisFew stories are more captivating than the one told by Natalie Zemon Davis in The Return of Martin Guerre. Basing her research on records of a bizarre court case that occurred in 16th-century France, she uses the tale of a missing soldier – whose disappearance threatens the livelihood of his peasant wife – to explore complex social issues. Davis takes rich material – dramatic enough to have been the basis of two major films – and uses it to explore issues of identity, women's role in peasant society, the interior lives of the poor, and the structure of village society, all of them topics that had previously proved difficult for historians to grapple with. Davis displays fine qualities of reasoning throughout – not only in constructing her own narrative, but also in persuading her readers of her point of view. Her work is also a fine example of good interpretation – practically every document in the case needs to be assessed for issues of meaning.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was Natalie Zemon Davis? What does The Return of Martin Guerre Say? Why does The Return of Martin Guerre Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisA critical analysis of Karl Marx’s Capital, which is without question one of the most influential books to be published in the course of the past two centuries. Controversial in its politics, and arriving at conclusions that are passionately debated to this day, it is nonetheless a fine example of the creative combination of a philosophical method (the dialectic) with historical and economic information to produce a new interpretation of history. Capitalism, thought Marx, works by exploiting the working class. Their wages do not reflect the value of their labor. Marx concluded that capitalism would fail because of this contradiction at the heart of the capitalist system. He wrote Capital to give activists the theories and language they needed to criticize the system. But the work also outlines the new communist society that Marx hoped would rise in its place, and it helped to inspire the rise of states that largely shaped the modern history of our planet. Today, after a century of conflict, Marx’s analysis still offers valuable tools that help us analyze the modern world. Marx's belief that he had arrived at a scientific way of describing the present and predicting the future may not be shared by many of his modern interpreters. But his ability to connect things together in new ways is not in doubt – and nor is the influence of the new hypotheses that he generated as a result of so much careful analysis. Table of ContentsWays In to the Text Who was Karl Marx? What does Capital Say? Why does Capital Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisLeon Festinger’s 1957 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance is a key text in the history of psychology – one that made its author one of the most influential social psychologists of his time. It is also a prime example of how creative thinking and problem solving skills can come together to produce work that changes the way people look at questions for good. Strong creative thinkers are able to look at things from a new perspective, often to the point of challenging the very frames in which those around them see things. Festinger was such a creative thinker, leading what came to be known as the “cognitive revolution” in social psychology. When Festinger was carrying out his research, the dominant school of thought – behaviorism – focused on outward behaviors and their effects. Festinger, however, turned his attention elsewhere, looking at “cognition:” the mental processes behind behaviors. In the case of “cognitive dissonance”, for example, he hypothesized that apparently incomprehensible or illogical behaviors might be caused by a cognitive drive away from dissonance, or internal contradiction. This perspective, however, raised a problem: how to examine and test out cognitive processes. Festinger’s book records the results of the psychological experiments he designed to solve that problem. The results helped prove the existence for what is now a fundamental theory in social psychology.Table of ContentsWays In to the Text Who was Leon Festinger? What does A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Say? Why does A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisEdward Said’s Orientalism is a masterclass in the art of interpretation wedded to close analysis. Interpretation is characterized by close attention to the meanings of terms, by clarifying, questioning definitions, and positing clear definitions. Combined with one of the main sub-skills of analysis, drawing inferences and finding implicit reasons and assumptions in arguments, interpretation becomes a powerful tool for critical thought. In Orientalism, the theorist, critic and cultural historian Edward Said uses interpretation and analysis to closely examine Western representations of the “Orient” and ask what they are really doing, and why. One of his central arguments is that Western representations of the East and Middle East persistently define it as “other”, setting it up in opposition to the West. Through careful analysis of a range of texts and other materials, Said shows that implicit assumptions about the “Orient’s” otherness underlie much Western thought and writing about it. Clarifying consistently the differences between the real-world East and the constructed ideas of the “Orient”, Said’s interpretative skills power his analysis, and provide the basis for an argument that has proven hugely influential in literary criticism, philosophy, and even politics.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was Edward Said? What does Orientalism Say? Why does Orientalism Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisWhen it was published in 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness quickly became one of the most influential books in modern economics and politics. Within a short time, it had inspired whole government departments in the US and UK, and others as far afield as Singapore. One of the keys to Nudge’s success is Thaler and Sunstein’s ability to create a detailed and persuasive case for their take on economic decision-making. Nudge is not a book packed with original findings or data; instead it is a careful and systematic synthesis of decades of research into behavioral economics. The discipline challenges much conventional economic thought – which works on the basis that, overall, humans make rational decisions – by focusing instead on the ‘irrational’ cognitive biases that affect our decision making. These seemingly in-built biases mean that certain kinds of economic decision-making are predictably irrational. Thaler and Sunstein prove themselves experts at creating persuasive arguments and dealing effectively with counter-arguments. They conclude that if governments understand these cognitive biases, they can ‘nudge’ us into making better decisions for ourselves. Entertaining as well as smart, Nudge shows the full range of reasoning skills that go into making a persuasive argument.Trade ReviewThaler and Sunstein create persuasive arguments and dealing effectively with counter-arguments. This little booklet explores this seminal work. It offers an additional learning resource structuring and explaining the main contents. It is structured in three main parts: influences, ideas, and impact.Lucia A. Reisch Journal of Consumer Policy Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who are Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein? What does Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Say? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisThe power of Frank Dikötter's ground-breaking work on the disaster that followed China's attempted ‘Great Leap Forward’ lies not in the detail of his evidence (though that shows that Mao's fumbled attempt at rapid industrialization probably cost 45 million Chinese lives). It stems from the exceptional reasoning skills that allowed Dikötter to turn years of researching in obscure Chinese archives into a compelling narrative of disaster, and above all to link two subjects that had been treated as distinct by most of his predecessors: the extent of the crisis in the countryside, and the actions (hence the responsibility) of the senior Chinese leadership. In Dikötter's view, ultimate responsibility for the catastrophe lies at the door of Mao Zedong himself; the Chairman conceived and ordered the policies that led to the famine, and he did nothing to reverse them or limit the damage that was being wrought when evidence for their disastrous impact reached him. Dikötter's ability to persuade his readers of the fundamental truth of these arguments – despite his admission that his access to sources was necessarily limited and incomplete – together with the clear structure of his presentation combine to produce a work that has had enormous influence on perceptions of Mao and of the Great Leap Forward itself.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who is Frank Dikotter? What does Mao's Great Famine Say? Why does Mao's Great Famine Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisHow was the Soviet Union like a soup kitchen? In this important and highly revisionist work, historian Sheila Fitzpatrick explains that a reimagining of the Communist state as a provider of goods for the ‘deserving poor’ can be seen as a powerful metaphor for understanding Soviet life as a whole. By positioning the state both as a provider and as a relief agency, Fitzpatrick establishes it as not so much a prison (the metaphor favoured by many of her predecessors), but more the agency that made possible a way of life. Fitzpatrick’s real claim to originality, however, is to look at the relationship between the all-powerful totalitarian government and its own people from both sides – and to demonstrate that the Soviet people were not totally devoid of either agency or resources. Rather, they successfully developed practices that helped them to navigate everyday life at a time of considerable danger and multiple shortages. For many, Fitzpatrick shows, becoming an informer and reporting fellow citizens – even family and friends – to the state was a successful survival strategy. Fitzpatrick's work is noted mainly as an example of the critical thinking skill of reasoning; she marshals evidence and arguments to deliver a highly persuasive revisionist description of everyday life in Soviet time. However, her book has been criticized for the way in which it deals with possible counter-arguments, not least the charge that many of the interviewees on whose experiences she bases much of her analysis were not typical products of the Soviet system.Table of ContentsWays in to the text Who was Sheila Fitzpatrick? What does Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s Say? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisA critical analysis of African-American novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston' 1934 essay Characteristics of Negro Expression: A crushing evaluation of the many racial prejudices of 1930s America, including a common presumption that African American art was unoriginal – merely poorly copying white culture. Hurston’s approach and premises may seem in many ways dated to modern readers, but the essay still shows an incisive mind carefully evaluating arguments and cutting them down to size. African-American art of the time did not – Hurston influentially argued – play by the same rules as white art, so it could not meaningfully be discussed by ‘white’ notions of aesthetic value. Where white European tradition views art as something fixed, Hurston saw African-American art works as a distinctive form of mimicry, reshaping and altering the original object until it became something new and novel. In this way, she contended, African-American creative expression is a process that generates its own form of originality – turning borrowed material into something original and unique. By carefully evaluating the relevance of previous arguments, Hurston showed African American artistic expression in an entirely new light.Table of ContentsWays In to the Text Who was Zora Heale Hurston? What does Characteristics of Negro Expression Say? Why does Characteristics of Negro Expression Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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