What is a self? Greenblatt argues that the 16th century saw the awakening of modern self-consciousness, the ability to fashion an identity out of the culture and politics of one’s society. In...
The end of the Cold War, which occurred early in the 1990s, brought joy and freedom to millions. But it posed a difficult question to the world's governments and to the academics who studied them: ...
Mary Douglas is an outstanding example of an evaluative thinker at work. In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, she delves in great detail into existing arguments tha...
Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 book The Second Sex is a masterpiece of feminist criticism and philosophy. An incendiary take on the place of women in post-war French society, it helped define majo...
Friedrich Hayek’s 1944 Road to Serfdom is a classic of conservative economic argument. While undeniably a product of a specific time in global politics – which saw the threat of fascism...
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is an unflinching dissection of the racial biases built into the American prison system. Named after the...