Political science & theory

  • Who’s afraid of gender?

    £10.99

    Judith Butler, the ground-breaking philosopher whose work has redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on gender that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed ‘anti-gender ideology movements’ dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilization – and even ‘man’ himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to abolish reproductive justice, undermine protections against violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights. But what, exactly, is so disturbing about gender? In this vital, courageous book, Butler carefully examines how ‘gender’ has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations and transexclusionary feminists, and the concrete ways in which this phantasm works.

  • The challenges of democracy

    £18.99

    Across the globe, democracy is in crisis – in the UK alone, it has been rocked by Brexit, the pandemic and successive attempts by governments to bypass legal norms. But how did this happen, and where might we go from here? Jonathan Sumption cuts through the political noise with acute analysis of the state of democracy today – from the vulnerabilities of international law to the deepening suppression of democracy activism in Hong Kong, and from the complexities of human rights legislation to the defence of freedom of speech. Timely, incisive and wholly original, ‘The Challenges of Democracy’ applies the brilliance of ‘the cleverest man in Britain’ to the most urgent and far-reaching political issue of our day.

  • Can feminism be African?

    £22.00

    What happens when we consider Africa through a feminist lens and feminism through an African one? And what does it mean to centre selfhood in this journey?

  • The message

    £18.99

    With his bestseller, ‘Between the World and Me’, Ta-Nehisi Coates established himself as a unique voice in his generation of American authors; a brilliant writer and thinker in the tradition of James Baldwin. In his keenly anticipated new book, ‘The Message’, he explores the urgent question of how our stories – our reporting, imaginative narratives and mythmaking – both expose and distort our realities. Travelling to three resonant sites of conflict, he illuminates how the stories we tell – as well as the ones we don’t – work to shape us.

  • Equality

    £14.99

    Equality is in crisis. Our world is filled with soaring inequalities, spanning wealth, race, identity, and nationality. Yet how can we strive for equality if we don’t understand it? As much as we have struggled for equality, we have always been profoundly sceptical about it. How much do we want, and for whom? Darrin McMahon’s ‘Equality’ is the definitive intellectual history, tracing equality’s global origins and spread from the dawn of humanity through the Enlightenment to today.

  • Limitarianism

    £10.99

    We all notice when the poor get poorer: when there are more rough sleepers and food bank queues start to grow. But if the rich become richer, there is nothing much to see in public and, for most of us, daily life doesn’t change. Or at least, not immediately. In this eye-opening intervention, philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns exposes the true extent of our wealth problem, which has spent the past 50 years silently spiralling out of control. In moral, political, economic, social, environmental and psychological terms, she shows, extreme wealth is not only unjustifiable but harmful to us all – the rich included. In place of our current system, Robeyns offers a breathtakingly clear alternative: limitarianism. The answer to so many of the problems posed by neoliberal capitalism – and the opportunity for a vastly better world – lies in placing a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate.

  • Waste land

    £20.00

    A darkly brilliant, wide-angled vision of our chaotic, globalised world, where present crises resonate with past tyrannies-from a bestselling geopolitical expert.

  • We are free to change the world

    £10.99

    The violent unease of today’s world would have been familiar to Hannah Arendt. Tyranny, occupation, disenchantment, post-truth politics, conspiracy theories, racism, mass migration: She lived through them all. Born in the first decade of the last century, she escaped fascist Europe to make a new life for herself in America, where she became one of its most influential – and controversial – public intellectuals. She wrote about power and terror, exile and love, and above all, about freedom. Questioning – thinking – was her first defense against tyranny. She advocated a politics of action and plurality, courage and, when necessary, disobedience. This book is about the Arendt we need for the 21st century. It tells us how and why Arendt came to think the way she did, and how to think when our own politics goes off the rails.

  • How tyrants fall

    £10.99

    Strongmen are rising. Democracies are faltering. How does tyranny end? Tyrants project invincibility, but all of them fall. This is because they face critical weaknesses that can form a fatal trap. Whether it’s their inner circle turning against them or resentment of elites in the military, the masses alienated by cronyism or revolutionaries plotting in exile, tyrants always have more enemies than friends. And when they fall tyrants don’t quietly retire – they face exile, prison or death. But understanding dictators isn’t enough. ‘How Tyrants Fall’ is the gripping, deeply researched blueprint for how to bring them down.

  • Land power

    £25.00

    For millennia land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. Michael Albertus shows that who owns the land determines whether a society will be equal or unequal, whether it will develop or decline, and whether it will safeguard or sacrifice its environment.

  • The Wizard of the Kremlin

    £10.99
  • Out

    £30.00

    The hotly anticipated final book of bestselling author Tim Shipman’s Brexit quartet. The Johnson Years to Rishi Sunak

    ‘Magnificent? Pacy and packed with delicious details? Shipman puts you in the room? His analysis is sharp and full of insight? For those seeking a moment-by-moment insider history it will not be topped’ FT

Nomad Books