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£12.99
Many of us assume Western civilisation derives from a cultural inheritance that stretches back to classical antiquity, a golden thread that binds us from Plato to NATO. But what if all this is wrong? What if the Western world does not have its ultimate origins in a single cultural bloodline but rather a messy bramble of ancestors and influences? What if ‘the West’ is just an idea that has been invented, co-opted, and mythologised to serve different purposes through history? As battles over privilege, identity and prejudice rock the cultural wars, it’s never been more important to understand how the concept of ‘the West’ came to be. This book tells a bold, empowering new story of how the idea of ‘the West’ was created, how it has been used to justify imperialism and racism, and also why it’s still a powerful ideological tool to understand our world.
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£30.00
What does history look like without ‘civilisations’? Josephine Quinn calls for a major reassessment of the West and the concepts that define it. The West, history tells us, was built on the ideas and values of Ancient Greece and Rome, which disappeared from Europe during the Dark Ages and were then rediscovered by the Renaissance. In a bold and magisterial work of immense scope, Josephine Quinn argues that the true story of the West is much bigger than this established paradigm leads us to believe.
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£10.99
Drawing on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit and using his own award-winning research – on how democracy is more likely to thrive under high inequality, for instance – Oxford professor Ben Ansell explains the cul-de-sac of modern politics – and how we can make it better. Understanding these traps helps us escape or avoid them altogether, in ways small to large, ultimately showing how we can all thrive in an imperfect world.
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£16.99
As politics slides toward impulsivity, and outrage bests rationality, how can philosophy help us critically engage with real world problems? Drawing on decades of work in philosophy including a huge range of interviews with contemporary philosophers, Julian Baggini sets out how philosophical thought can promote incisive thinking. Introducing everyday examples and contemporary political concerns – from climate change to implicit bias – ‘How to Think Like a Philosopher’ is a revelatory exploration of the techniques, methods and principles that guide philosophy, and how they can be applied to our own lives.
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£10.99
In very recent times humanity has learnt a vast amount about the universe, the past, and itself. But through our remarkable successes in acquiring knowledge we have learned how much we have yet to learn: the science we have, for example, addresses just 5% of the universe; pre-history is still being revealed, with thousands of historical sites yet to be explored; and the new neurosciences of mind and brain are just beginning. Bestselling polymath and philosopher A.C. Grayling seeks to answer them in three crucial areas at the frontiers of knowledge: science, history, and psychology. In each area he illustrates how each field has advanced to where it is now, from the rise of technology to quantum theory, from the dawn of humanity to debates around national histories, from ancient ideas of the brain to modern theories of the mind.
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£10.99
It’s a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. And its roots sink deep into Western thought: from Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the tacit assumption is that humans are bad. Humankind makes the case for a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. When we think the worst of others, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics too. In his long-awaited second book, international-bestselling author Rutger Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think – and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society. It is time for a new view of human nature.
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£25.00
Friedrich Nietzsche’s work blasted the foundation of western thinking. The death of God, the Ãbermensch, and the slave morality permeate our culture, high and low, and yet he is one of history’s most misunderstood philosophers. Nietzsche himself thought that all philosophy was autobiographical and in this myth-shattering book, Sue Prideaux brings readers into the world of a brilliant, eccentric and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. From his placid, devoutly Christian upbringing, overshadowed by the mysterious death of his father, through his lonely philosophising on high mountains, to the horror and pathos of his final descent into madness, Prideaux explores Nietzsche’s intellectual, emotional and spiritual life with insight and sensitivity.
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£10.99
Himmelfarb contrasts the Enlightenment in Britain, France and the United States and shows how the abstracted idealism of man (combined with a disparagement of the common man) that characterised the French Enlightenment has wrongly been given primacy by generations of thinkers.
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£10.99
Alain de Botton pairs six philosophers – Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche – with six everyday problems to which they are able to give the most helpful and fascinating answers.
Strange Houses 
