Routledge Classics

In The Undiscovered Self Jung explains the essence of his teaching for a readership unfamiliar with his ideas. He highlights the importance of individual responsibility and freedom in the context of today's mass society, and argues that individual...

Although written fairly early in his career, in 1939, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions is considered to be one of Jean-Paul Sartre's most important pieces of writing. It not only anticipates but argues many of the ideas to be found in his famou...

The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was one of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century. His work has had a profound impact not only within anthropology but also linguistics, sociology and philosophy. In this short book he examines t...

Few books have had as great an impact on intellectual history as Kant's The Moral Law. In its short compass one of the greatest minds in the history of philosophy attempts to identify the fundamental principle 'morality' that governs human action....

The creation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory in the 1920s saw the birth of some of the most exciting and challenging writings of the twentieth century. It is out of this background that the great critic Theodor Adorno emerged. His fines...

In simple prose Merleau-Ponty touches on his principle themes. He speaks about the body and the world, the coexistence of space and things, the unfortunate optimism of science – and also the insidious stickiness of honey, and the mystery of anger....

The Transcendence of the Ego is one of Jean-Paul Sartre's earliest philosophical publications and essential for understanding the trajectory of his work as a whole. When it first appeared in France in 1937 Sartre was still largely unknown, working...

In France, a country that awards its intellectuals the status other countries give their rock stars, Michel Foucault was part of a glittering generation of thinkers, one which also included Sartre, de Beauvoir and Deleuze. One of the great intelle...

What fascinates us about intelligence? How does intelligence impact our daily lives? Why do we sometimes fear intelligence? Human intelligence is a vital resource, yet the study of it is pervaded by neglect and misconceptions. The Psychology of I...

Jung's discovery of the 'collective unconscious', a psychic inheritance common to all humankind, transformed the understanding of the self and the way we interpret the world. In On the Nature of the Psyche Jung describes this remarkable theory in ...

Is Marx relevant any more? Why should we care what he wrote? What difference could it make to our reading of literature? Terry Eagleton, one of the foremost critics of our generation, has some answers in this wonderfully clear and readable analysi...

Few philosophers have had more influence on the shape of western philosophy after 1900 than Martin Heidegger. Basic Writings offers a full range of this profound and controversial thinker’s writings in one volume, including: The Origin of the Work...

Homi Bhabha is one of that small group occupying the front ranks of cultural theoretical thought. Any serious discussion of post-colonial/postmodern scholarship is inconceivable without referencing Mr. Bhabha.' -- Toni Morrison Rethinking question...

First published in 1946, History of Western Philosophy went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philoso...

In this classic account of madness, Michel Foucault shows once and for all why he is one of the most distinguished European philosophers since the end of World War II. Madness and Civilization, Foucault's first book and his finest accomplishment, ...

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1138301361, 9781138301368, Routledge Classics

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or in...

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific c...

In Bodies That Matter, renowned theorist and philosopher Judith Butler argues that theories of gender need to return to the most material dimension of sex and sexuality: the body. Butler offers a brilliant reworking of the body, examining how the ...

Theodor Adorno was no stranger to controversy. In The Jargon of Authenticity he gives full expression to his hostility to the language employed by certain existentialist thinkers such as Martin Heidegger. With his customary alertness to the uses a...

There would be no need for sociology if everyone understood the social frameworks within which we operate. That we do have a connection to the larger picture is largely thanks to the pioneering thinker Émile Durkheim. He recognized that, if anythi...

In this remarkable book Michel Foucault, one of the most influential thinkers of recent times, calls us to look critically at specific historical events in order to uncover new layers of significance. In doing so, he challenges our assumptions not...

Widely acknowledged to be one of Freud's greatest cultural works, when Totem and Taboo was first published in 1913, it caused outrage. Thorough and thought-provoking, Totem and Taboo remains the fullest exploration of Freud's most famous themes. F...

What is Literature? (Routledge Classics) [Paperback] Jean-Paul Sartre

A cornerstone of Sartre’s philosophy, The Imaginary was first published in 1940. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the 'intentionality of consciousness' as a key to the p...

This book is for anyone who has ever wondered how a child develops language, thought, and knowledge. Before this classic appeared, little was known of the way children think. In 1923, however, Jean Piaget, the most important developmental psycholo...

A Short History of Ethics has over the past thirty years become a key philosophical contribution to studies on morality and ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre writes a new preface for this second edition which looks at the book 'thirty years on' and consi...

The Stars Down to Earth shows us a stunningly prescient Adorno. Haunted by the ugly side of American culture industries he used the different angles provided by each of these three essays to showcase the dangers inherent in modern obsessions with ...

Paul Ricoeur is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. In The Rule of Metaphor he seeks 'to show how language can extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within itself'. Recognizing ...

In 1993, Derrida opened a conference organized around the question 'Whither Marxism?’, and it is his plenary address that forms the basis of this book. Hotly debated then, a changing world and world politic have scarcely dented its relevance today.

Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the perfect introduction to the theories and concepts of one of the most original and influential religious thinkers of the twentieth century. Lively and insightful, it covers all of his most significant themes, i...

Bertrand Russell’s recipe for good living - this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written.

The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural hist...

Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day a powerful and fascinating read. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for hi...

Key Features New! Emphasis on inquiry through assessment: Based on recent research on designs for teaching and learning, the role of teacher inquiry and how it is supported through formative assessment practices is addressed. Formative assessment'...

Love is a force of destiny whose power reaches from heaven to hell.' So Jung advises while reflecting on 'The Love Problem of a Student', an essay contained in this volume. But it is not just love that Jung speaks of in this book. Taking as its th...

In this classic work, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the leading and most influential cultural theorists working today, analyzes the relationship between language, women and culture in both Western and non-Western contexts. Developing an origi...

Along with Why I Am Not a Christian, this essay must rank as the most articulate example of Russell's famed atheism. It is also one of the most notorious. Used as evidence in a 1940 court case in which Russell was declared unfit to teach college-l...

A charismatic and controversial figure, Lacan is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century and his work has revolutionized linguistics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural and media studies. He gained his reputation as a...

When one defines "order" as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature, art, economics and even ...

In this, his most famous work, Marcel Mauss presented to the world a book which revolutionized our understanding of some of the basic structures of society. By identifying the complex web of exchange and obligation involved in the act of giving, M...

These writings of his are strongly alive; in most instances Jung does not present us with final solutions and last words about any of the great East-West problems, but rather with suggestions for a deeper kind of approach, thus opening up new plan...

Bertrand Russell remains one of the greatest philosophers and most complex and controversial figures of the twentieth century. Here, in this frank, humorous and decidedly charming autobiography, Russell offers readers the story of his life – intro...

Nearly forty years after its first publication in French, this collection of Sartre’s writings on colonialism remains a supremely powerful, and relevant, polemical work. Over a series of thirteen essays Sartre brings the full force of his remarkab...

To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frightening venture. Here Mary Midgley does so, with her customary brilliance and clarity. Midgley's analysis proves that the capacity for real wickedness is an inevitable part of human nature. This...

Understanding Media [Paperback] Marshall McLuhan

Following the publication of the seminal Fear of Freedom, Erich Fromm applied his unique vision to a critique of contemporary capitalism in The Sane Society. Where the former dealt with man's historic inability to come to terms with his sense of i...

The Family and Individual Development represents a decade of writing from a thinker who was at the peak of his powers as perhaps the leading post-war figure in developmental psychiatry. In these pages, Winnicott chronicles the complex inner lives ...

Winnicott is concerned with the springs of imaginative living and of cultural experience in every sense, with whatever determines an individual's capacity to live creatively and to find life worth living.

Unpopular Essays, [Paperback] Bertrand Russell

One of the most important texts of modern times, Herbert Marcuse's analysis and image of a one-dimensional man in a one-dimensional society has shaped many young radicals' way of seeing and experiencing life. Published in 1964, it fast became an i...

Marriage and Morals is a compelling cross-cultural examination of individual, familial and societal attitudes towards sex and marriage. By exploring the codes by which we live our sexual lives and conventional morality, Russell daringly sets out a...

Creativity is fundamental to human experience. In On Creativity, David Bohm, the world-renowned scientist, investigates the phenomenon from all sides: not only the creativity of invention and of imagination but also that of perception and of disco...

In this remarkable book, regarded by Russell as one of the most important of his career, he argues that power is man's ultimate goal and is, in its many guises, the single most important element in the development of any society.

The remarkable French thinker Simone Weil is one of the leading intellectual and spiritual figures of the twentieth century. A legendary essayist, political philosopher and member of the French resistance, her literary output belied her tragically...

Konrad Lorenz was the author of some of the most popular books ever published about animals, including the best-selling Man Meets Dog and King Solomon's Ring. On Aggression is one of his finest works, as well as the most controversial. Through an ...

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy remains one of the greatest works of social theory written in the twentieth Century. Schumpeter's contention that the seeds of capitalism's decline were internal, and his equal and opposite hostility to centrali...

The concept of masculinity was crucial not only to Jung's revolutionary theories of the human psyche, but also to his own personal development. If, as Jung believed, "modern man is already so darkened that nothing beyond the light of his own intel...

In the 1960s a radical concept emerged from the great French thinker Jacques Derrida. Read the book that changed the way we think; read Writing and Difference, the classic introduction.

Described by reviewers as 'brilliant', 'proactive', 'sane', 'stimulating', 'practical', and 'original', this book contains the essence of Russell's thought on education and society.