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Waiting for God

Waiting for God

'You cannot get far in these essays without sensing yourself in the presence of a writer of immense intellectual power and fierce independence of mind. ' - Janet Soskice from the Introduction to the Routledge Classics edition Simone Weil (1909–1943) is one of the most brilliant and unorthodox religious and philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century. She was also a political activist who worked in the Renault car factory in France in the 1930s and fought briefly as an anarchist in the Spanish Civil War. Hailed by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our times ' her work spans an astonishing variety of subjects from ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity to oppression political freedom and French national identity. Waiting for God is one of her most remarkable books full of piercing spiritual and moral insight. The first part comprises letters she wrote in 1942 to Jean-Marie Perrin a Dominican priest and demonstrate the intense inner conflict Weil experienced as she wrestled with the demands of Christian belief and commitment. She then explores the 'just balance' of the world arguing that we should regard God as providing two forms of guidance: our ability as human beings to think for ourselves; and our need for both physical and emotional 'matter. ' She also argues for the concept of a 'sacred longing'; that humanity's search for beauty both in the world and within each other is driven by our underlying desire for a tangible god. Eloquent and inspiring Waiting for God asks profound questions about the nature of faith doubt and morality that continue to resonate today. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Introduction by Janet Soskice and retains the Foreword to the 1979 edition by Malcolm Muggeridge.

GBP 14.99
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The Causes of the English Revolution 1529-1642

The Causes of the English Revolution 1529-1642

Dividing the nation and causing massive political change the English Civil War remains one of the most decisive and dramatic conflicts of English history. Lawrence Stone's account of the factors leading up to the deposition of Charles I in 1642 is widely regarded as a classic in the field. Brilliantly synthesising the historical political and sociological interpretations of the seventeeth century Stone explores theories of revolution and traces the social and economic change that led to this period of instability. The picture that emerges is one where historical interpretation is enriched but not determined by grand theories in the social sciences and as Stone elegantly argues one where the upheavals of the seventeenth century are central to the very story of modernity. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Clare Jackson Trinity Hall Cambridge. | The Causes of the English Revolution 1529-1642

GBP 16.99
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Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks

Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks

Simone Weil (1909–1943) is one of the most brilliant and unorthodox religious and philosophical minds of the twentieth century. She was also a political activist worked in the Renault car factory in France in the 1930s and fought briefly as an anarchist in the Spanish Civil War before her tragic early death in England at the age of thirty-four. Her work spans an astonishing variety of subjects from ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity to oppression political freedom and French national identity. Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks sees Weil apply her unique and piercing intellect to early Greek thought where she finds fundamental precursors to Christian religious ideas. She argues provocatively that concepts fundamental to Christianity such as incarnation redemption suffering and resurrection are Greek as well as Christian and that there is much we can learn spiritually and philosophically from their entwinement. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Christopher Hamilton.

GBP 16.99
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The Bounds of Sense An Essay on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

The Bounds of Sense An Essay on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

Peter Strawson (1919–2006) was one of the leading British philosophers of his generation and an influential figure in a golden age for British philosophy between 1950 and 1970. The Bounds of Sense is one of the most influential books ever written about Kant’s philosophy and is one of the key philosophical works of the late twentieth century. Whilst probably best known for its criticism of Kant’s transcendental idealism it is also famous for the highly original manner in which Strawson defended and developed some of Kant’s fundamental insights into the nature of subjectivity experience and knowledge – at a time when few philosphers were engaging with Kant’s ideas. The book had a profound effect on the interpretation of Kant’s philosophy when it was first published in 1966 and continues to influence discussion of Kant the soundness of transcendental arguments and debates in epistemology and metaphysics generally. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Lucy Allais. | The Bounds of Sense An Essay on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

GBP 16.99
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Stone Age Economics

Stone Age Economics

Since its first publication over forty years ago Marshall Sahlins's Stone Age Economics has established itself as a classic of modern anthropology and arguably one of the founding works of anthropological economics. Ambitiously tackling the nature of economic life and how to study it comparatively Sahlins radically revises traditional views of the hunter-gatherer and so-called primitive societies revealing them to be the original affluent society. Sahlins examines notions of production distribution and exchange in early communities and examines the link between economics and cultural and social factors. A radical study of tribal economies domestic production for livelihood and of the submission of domestic production to the material and political demands of society at large Stone Age Economics regards the economy as a category of culture rather than behaviour in a class with politics and religion rather than rationality or prudence. Sahlins concludes controversially that the experiences of those living in subsistence economies may actually have been better healthier and more fulfilled than the millions enjoying the affluence and luxury afforded by the economics of modern industrialisation and agriculture. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by David Graeber London School of Economics.

GBP 16.99
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Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume 2 Durkheim Pareto Weber

Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume 2 Durkheim Pareto Weber

This is the second of Raymond Aron's classic two-volume survey of the sociological tradition – arguably the definitive work of its kind. Aron explores the work of three figures who profoundly shaped sociology as it entered the twentieth century: Émile Durkheim who continued Auguste Comte's quest for a science of society and a scientific validation of morality; Vilfredo Pareto the Italian neo-Machiavellian who emphasized the oligarchic or elitist character of all societies; and the German sociologist Max Weber who reflected critically on the prospects for human freedom in an age marked by bureaucratization and rationalization. Aron presents rich portraits of these three thinkers drawing out the enduring insights that remain in their work. At the same time he reflects critically on Durkheim's project for a science of society Pareto's critique of humanitarianism and Weber's tragic pessimism. Above all the book is remarkable for demonstrating Aron’s lifelong indebtedness to and divergence from the thought of Max Weber the sociologist par excellence in Aron's view. This Routledge Classics edition includes an introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian C. Anderson. | Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume 2 Durkheim Pareto Weber

GBP 16.99
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Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume One Montesquieu Comte Marx De Tocqueville: The Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848

Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume One Montesquieu Comte Marx De Tocqueville: The Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848

This is the first part of Raymond Aron's landmark two-volume study of the sociological tradition—arguably the definitive work of its kind. More than a work of reconstruction Aron's study is at its deepest level an engagement with the very question of modernity: how did the intellectual currents which emerged in the eighteenth century shape the modern political and philosophical order? With scrupulous fairness Aron examines the thoughts and arguments of the major social thinkers to discern how they answered this question. Volume One explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology represented by Montesquieu and Tocqueville; the Comtean tradition anticipating Durkheim in its elevation of social unity and consensus; and the Marxists who posited the struggle between classes and placed their faith in historical necessity. In his customary clear and penetrating prose Aron argues that each of these schools offers its own theory of the diversity of societies and that each is inspired both by moral convictions and by scientific hypotheses. This Routledge Classics edition includes an introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian C. Anderson. | Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume One Montesquieu Comte Marx De Tocqueville: The Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848

GBP 16.99
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The Ecological Self

The Ecological Self

Environmental disasters from wildfires and vanishing species to flooding and drought have increased dramatically in recent years and debates about the environment are rarely far from the headlines. There is growing awareness that these disasters are connected – indeed that in the fabric of nature everything is interconnected. However until the publication of Freya Mathews' The Ecological Self there had been remarkably few attempts to provide a conceptual foundation for such interconnectedness that brought together philosophy and science. In this acclaimed book Mathews skilfully weaves together a thought-provoking metaphysics of the environment. She connects the ideas of the seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza with twentieth-century systems theory and Einstein’s physics to argue that the atomistic cosmology inherited from Newton gave credence to a picture of the universe as fragmented rather than as whole. Furthermore it is such faulty thinking that presents human beings as similarly disconnected and individualistic with the dire consequence that they regard nature as of purely instrumental rather than intrinsic value. She concludes by arguing for an ethics of ecological interdependence and for a basic egalitarianism among living species. A compelling and fascinating account of how we must change our thinking about the environment The Ecological Self is a classic of ecological and environmental thinking. This Routledge Classics edition includes a substantial new Introduction by the author.

GBP 16.99
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The World of Goods

The World of Goods

It is well-understood that the consumption of goods plays an important symbolic role in the way human beings communicate create identity and establish relationships. What is less well-known is that the pattern of their flow shapes society in fundamental ways. In this book the renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas and economist Baron Isherwood overturn arguments about consumption that rely on received economic and psychological explanations. They ask new questions about why people save why they spend what they buy and why they sometimes-but not always-make fine distinctions about quality. Instead of regarding consumption as a private means of satisfying one’s preferences they show how goods are a vital information system used by human beings to fulfill their intentions towards one another. They also consider the implications of the social role of goods for a new vision for social policy arguing that poverty is caused as much by the erosion of local communities and networks as it is by lack of possessions and contrast small-scale with large-scale consumption in the household. A radical rethinking of consumerism inequality and social capital The World of Goods is a classic of economic anthropology whose insights remain compelling and urgent. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Richard Wilk. Forget that commodities are good for eating clothing and shelter; forget their usefulness and try instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking. – Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood

GBP 16.99
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The Problem of China

The Problem of China

'China by her resources and her population is capable of being the greatest power in the world after the United States. ' Bertrand Russell The Problem of China In 1920 the philosopher Bertrand Russell spent a year in China as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Beijing (then Peking) where his lectures on mathematical logic enthralled students and listeners including Mao Tse Tung who attended some of Russell’s talks. Written at a time when China was largely regarded by the West as backward and weak The Problem of China sees Russell rise above the prejudices of his era and presciently assess China's past present and future. Russell brings his analytical and insightful eye to bear on some fundamental aspects of China’s history and politics cautioning China against adopting a purely Western model of social and economic development which he regarded as characterized by a combination of greed and militarism. Beginning with an overview of nineteenth-century Chinese history and considering China's relations with Japan and Russia Russell then contrasts Chinese civilization with Western. He devotes a fascinating chapter to the character of the Chinese which he argues is complex but ultimately defined by a ‘pacific temper’. With uncanny foresight Russell predicts China’s resurgence but only if it is able to establish an orderly government promote industrial development under Chinese control and foster the spread of education. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new introduction by Bernard Linsky.

GBP 16.99
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The Origin and Goal of History

The Origin and Goal of History

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) was a German psychiatrist and philosopher and one of the most original European thinkers of the twentieth century. As a major exponent of existentialism in Germany he had a strong influence on modern theology psychiatry and philosophy. He was Hannah Arendt’s supervisor before her emigration to the United States in the 1930s and himself experienced the consequences of Nazi persecution. He was removed from his position at the University of Heidelberg in 1937 due to his wife being Jewish. Published in 1949 the year in which the Federal Republic of Germany was founded The Origin and Goal of History is a vitally important book. It is renowned for Jaspers' theory of an 'Axial Age' running from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. Jaspers argues that this period witnessed a remarkable flowering of new ways of thinking that appeared in Persia India China and the Greco-Roman world in striking parallel development but without any obvious direct cultural contact between them. Jaspers identifies key thinkers from this age including Confucius Buddha Zarathustra Homer and Plato who had a profound influence on the trajectory of future philosophies and religions. For Jaspers crucially it is here that we see the flowering of diverse philosophical beliefs such as scepticism materialism sophism nihilism and debates about good and evil which taken together demonstrate human beings' shared ability to engage with universal humanistic questions as opposed to those mired in nationality or authoritarianism. At a deeper level The Origin and Goal of History provides a crucial philosophical framework for the liberal renewal of German intellectual life after 1945 and indeed of European intellectual life more widely as a shattered continent attempted to find answers to what had happened in the preceding years. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Christopher Thornhill.

GBP 16.99
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Portraits from Memory And Other Essays

Portraits from Memory And Other Essays

‘I have come to think that one of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence. ’ – Bertrand Russell Portraits from Memory Portraits from Memory is one of Bertrand Russell’s most self-reflective and engaging books. Whilst not intended as an autobiography it is a vivid recollection of some of his celebrated contemporaries such as George Bernard Shaw Sidney and Beatrice Webb and D. H. Lawrence. Russell provides some arresting and sometimes amusing insights into writers with whom he corresponded. He was fascinated by Joseph Conrad with whom he formed a strong emotional bond writing that his Heart of Darkness was not just a story but an expression of Conrad’s ‘philosophy of life’. There are also some typically pithy Russellian observations; H. G. Wells ‘derived his importance from quantity rather than quality’ whilst after a brief and fraught friendship Russell thought D. H. Lawrence ‘had no real wish to make the world better but only to indulge in eloquent soliloquy about how bad it was’. This engaging book also includes some of Russell’s customary razor-sharp essays on a rich array of subjects from his ardent pacifism liberal politics and morality to the ethics of education the skills of good writing and how he came to philosophy as a young man. These include ‘A Plea for Clear Thinking’ ‘A Philosophy for Our Time’ and ‘How I Write’. Portraits from Memory is Russell at his best and will enthrall those new to Russell as well as those already well-acquainted with his work. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by the Russell scholar Nicholas Griffin editor of The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell. | Portraits from Memory And Other Essays

GBP 16.99
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Excitable Speech A Politics of the Performative

Excitable Speech A Politics of the Performative

‘When we claim to have been injured by language what kind of claim do we make?’ - Judith Butler Excitable Speech Excitable Speech is widely hailed as a tour de force and one of Judith Butler’s most important books. Examining in turn debates about hate speech pornography and gayness within the US military Butler argues that words can wound and linguistic violence is its own kind of violence. Yet she also argues that speech is ‘excitable’ and fluid because its effects often are beyond the control of the speaker shaped by fantasy context and power structures. In a novel and courageous move she urges caution concerning the use of legislation to restrict and censor speech especially in cases where injurious language is taken up by aesthetic practices to diminish and oppose the injury such as in rap and popular music. Although speech can insult and demean it is also a form of recognition and may be used to talk back; injurious speech can reinforce power structures but it can also repeat power in ways that separate language from its injurious power. Skillfully showing how language’s oppositional power resides in its insubordinate and dynamic nature and its capacity to appropriate and defuse words that usually wound Butler also seeks to account for why some clearly hateful speech is taken to be iconic of free speech while other forms are more easily submitted to censorship. In light of current debates between advocates of freedom of speech and ‘no platform’ and cancel culture the message of Excitable Speech remains more relevant now than ever. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Preface by the author where she considers speech and language in the context contemporary forms of political polarization. | Excitable Speech A Politics of the Performative

GBP 16.99
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