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On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro", and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event.

In Life Worth Living, Yale's leading theologians Volf, Croasmun and McAnnally-Linz offer a deep dive beneath the levels of habit, strategy and introspection to the bedrock question of what kind of life is truly worth living. Inspired by the leading Yale course of the same, this perspective-shifting book will guide you through life's biggest questions. Drawing on the world's greatest religious and philosophical traditions, this is your path to understanding the true meaning of life.

Looking across a fascinating range of situations both familiar and unfamiliar, serious and light-hearted, Bullsh*t Comparisons is a ground-breaking guide to the role of could-be-true but misleading comparisons. It is illuminated by examples spanning the globe from university league tables, to childhood rivalries, politicians' tawdry analogies, the FIFA World Footballer of the year award and Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa.

Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice—frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated.

Was ist Klasse? Wie entsteht Ungleichheit? Was sind die Quellen von Statushierarchien und Prestige? Sind reiche Menschen bessere Menschen? Oder schlechtere? Hanno Sauer zeigt in diesem brillanten Hörbuch, was Klassenunterschiede sind, wie sie funktionieren und warum sie so schwer loszuwerden sind. Und wie wir die »Logik sozialer Signale« entschlüsseln können, von denen wir umgeben sind. Dabei wird klar: Soziale Klassenunterschiede und Statushierarchien haben einen viel fundamentaleren Einfluss auf unser Denken, unser Handeln und unsere gesamte Gesellschaft, als wir glauben.

Steven Pinker's 12-part guide to thinking better 'A paean to human potential' The Telegraph Cognitive scientist Professor Steven Pinker has spent his life thinking about thinking, and now he wants us to join him. With the aid of his critical thinking toolkit, he hopes to help us make smarter...

Listening is a skill—even an art—and it’s essential to learning and to life. Indeed, as Plutarch writes in How to Listen, “listening well is the foundation for living well.” In this volume, Jeffrey Beneker presents a vivid and accessible new translation of Plutarch’s classic essay about how to become a skilled listener, complete with an inviting introduction.

Cynicism is a disease, with a history, symptoms and a cure. Through science and storytelling, Jamil Zaki imparts the secret for beating back cynicism: hopeful scepticism. This approach doesn't mean putting our faith in every politician or influencer. It means thinking critically about people and our problems, while simultaneously acknowledging and encouraging our strengths.

We present ourselves and encounter others through profiles. A profile shows us not as we are seen directly but how we are perceived by a broader public. Profile-based identity is evident everywhere from pop culture to politics, marketing to morality. This book argues that the profile marks an epochal shift in our concept of identity and demonstrates why that matters. You and Your Profile blends social theory, philosophy, and cultural critique to unfold an exploration of the way we have come to experience the world.

In a time of rising social isolation, ideological division, and technological upheaval, libraries stand at a crossroads. In Triptych: Death, AI, and Librarianship, acclaimed scholar R. David Lankes—joined by Jain Orr and Qianzi Cao—delivers a bold, urgent, and deeply human call to action for the library profession. Structured around three provocative lectures, this book challenges librarians to move beyond traditional service models and embrace their role as agents of social transformation.

In this groundbreaking work, Kwame Anthony Appiah, hailed as "one of the most relevant philosophers today" (New York Times Book Review), changes the way we understand human behavior and the way social reform is brought about. In brilliantly arguing that new democratic movements over the last century have not been driven by legislation from above, Appiah explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over foot binding in 19th-century China, the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery, and much more.

Critique of Judgement was published in 1790 and is divided into two parts, the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and the Critique of Teleological Judgement. Our ‘judgements of taste’, as Kant describes our aesthetic judgements, have both a personal and a universal function: personal, because we have a subjective aesthetic response to the ‘agreeable’, the ‘beautiful’, the ‘sublime’ and the ‘good’; but also there is a ‘universal’ aspect because our aesthetic response has a ’disinterested’ element. This brings under Kant’s spotlight, for example, the concept of beauty and the perception of beauty. 

Need a rental person who does nothing? Shoji Morimoto provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. After an old boss told him that he contributed nothing and that it made no difference whether he showed up to work or not, he wondered if a person who ‘does nothing’ could...

A VULTURE BEST BOOK From renowned organizers and activists Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor, comes the first in-depth examination of Solidarity—not just as a rallying cry, but as potent political movement with potential to effect lasting change. A DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST...

First published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman tackles many of the punitive patriarchal attitudes that dominated 18th-century society. With warmth and passion, Mary Wollstonecraft urges women to prioritize reason over emotion - a necessary step in building the strength of character required to break free from male notions of female fragility and foolishness. Wollstonecraft bases much of her argument in the case for women's education.

Brought to you by Penguin. What can humankind’s rich history of radical revolts teach us about the power of disobedience to tackle the climate crisis? What inspiration could we take from eighteenth century Japan to create a regenerative economy today? How might understanding the origins of...

The French thinker and political theorist Georges Sorel (1847-1922), fired up by his interest in Marxism and his anger at the injustice of the Dreyfus case, faced this challenge and in the seven chapters of Reflections on Violence he explored the question. It proved sufficiently stimulating over succeeding decades to be espoused by both Marxists and Fascists alike: class struggle, revolution and above all radical change were central to Sorel’s thought.  

Este ensayo aporta luz a problemas políticos de la máxima actualidad en nuestra sociedad, en un momento en que la izquierda transformadora se encuentra en un estado de resaca, tanto por la tendencia al retroceso que está experimentando, como por su condición tras unos años de constante actividad. Escrito gracias a una profunda reflexión y un continuado estudio de la filosofía política, sobrepasa el aspecto teórico al alimentarse también de la experiencia política y la práctica institucional realizada durante muchos años.

The philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the absence of appealing models of maturity is not an accident: By describing life as a downhill process, we prepare young people to expect - and demand - very little from it. In Why Grow Up?, she challenges our culture of permanent adolescence, turning to thinkers including Kant, Rousseau, and Arendt to find a model of maturity that is not a matter of resignation. In growing up, we move from the boundless trust of childhood to the peculiar mixture of disappointment and exhilaration that comes with adolescence.

Noam Chomsky is widely known and deeply admired for being the founder of modern linguistics, one of the founders of the field of cognitive science, and perhaps the most avidly read political theorist and commentator of our time. In these lectures, he presents a lifetime of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas of research to which he has contributed for over half a century.