A fascinating examination of ethics, religion and psychology, this selection of Schopenhauer's works contains scathing attack on the nature and logic of religion, and an essay on ethics that ranges...
Charles Dickens describes in Night Walks his time as an insomniac, when he decided to cure himself by walking through London in the small hours, and discovered homelessness, drunkenness and vice on...
In one of the most influential philosophical works ever writen, John Stuart Mill explores the risks and responsibilities of liberty. Examining the tyranny that can come both from government and fro...
Gabriel García Márquez has been one of the literary giants of the past century; his body of work is an undisputed cultural landmark and a touchstone for countless readers and writers ...
The phenomenal international bestseller that shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertaintyWhat have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall...
Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materi...
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened...
Vladimir Lenin created this hugely significant Marxist text to explain fully the inevitable flaws and destructive power of Capitalism: that it would lead unavoidably to imperialism, monopolies and ...
Tagore was a fierce opponent of British rule in India. In this work he discusses the resurgence of the East and the challenge it poses to Western supremacy, calling for a future beyond nationalism,...
Steven Levitt, the original rogue economist, and Stephen Dubner have spent four years uncovering the hidden side of even more controversial subjects, from terrorism to shark attacks, cable TV to hu...
Adaring critique of communism and how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain, Camus' essay examines the revolutions in France and Russia, and argues that since they were both guilty of producing...
One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeate...
One of the most important thinkers ever to write in English, the Empiricist David Hume liberated philosophy from the superstitious constraints of religion; here, he argues that all are free to choo...
This collection of speeches from one of the great modern orators includes Churchill's famous words on the declaration of war with Germany, as well as his rousing call to the British in June 1940 af...
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened...
Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. It describes his search for 'a practical religi...
Adam Smith’s landmark treatise on the free market paved the way for modern capitalism, arguing that competition is the engine of a productive society, and that self-interest will eventually c...
Immanuel Kant was one of the most influential philosophers in the whole of Europe, who changed Western thought with his examinations of reason and the nature of reality. In these writings he invest...
Originally published anonymously, Nature was the first modern essay to recommend the appreciation of the outdoors as an all-encompassing positive force. Emerson’s writings were recognized as ...
John Ruskin overturned Victorian society's ideas about art and architecture, arguing that ancient buildings must be conserved for their deep, mystical links with the past and that creative design i...