The Art of Rethoric

For all men are persuaded by considerations of where their interest lies... Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric is the earliest systematic treatment of the subject, and it remains among the most incisive works on rhetoric that we possess. In it, we are asked: What is ...

Autobiography

It may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable John Stuart Mill (1806-73), philosopher, economist, and political thinker, was the most prominent figure of nineteenth century English intellectual life and his work has continuing significance for ...

On liberty, utilitarianism and other essays

'it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well developed human beings' Mill's four essays, 'On Liberty', 'Utilitarianism', 'Considerations on Representative Government', and 'The Subjection of Women' examine the most central issues that face liberal democratic regimes - whether in the ...

An enquiry concerning political justice

'To a rational being there can be but one rule of conduct, justice, and one mode of ascertaining that rule, the exercise of his understanding.' Godwin's Political Justice is the founding text of philosophical anarchism. Written in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution ...

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Edmund Burke was the dominant political thinker of the last quarter of the eighteenth century in England. His reputation depends less on his role as a practising politician than on his ability to set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory. Above all ...

The first philosophers

the Presocratics and the Sophists

Translated with commentary by Robin Waterfield. The first philosophers paved the way for the work of Plato and Aristotle - and hence for the whole of Western thought. Aristotle said that philosophy begins with wonder, and the first Western philosophers developed theories of the world which ...

The Age of Innocence

'They lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.' Edith Wharton's most famous novel, written immediately after the end of the First World War ...

Capital

a new abridgment

A classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society. It has proved to be the most influential work in twentieth-century social science; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for ...

An essay on the principle of population

Leviathan

He that is to govern a whole nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but mankind. Leviathan is both a magnificent literary achievement and the greatest work of political philosophy in the English language. Permanently challenging, it has found new applications ...

Looking Backward 2000-1887

'No person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity.' Julian West, a feckless aristocrat living in fin-de-siecle Boston, plunges into a deep hypnotic sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year ...

Myths from Mesopotamia

creation, the flood, Gilgamesh, and others

The ancient civilization of Mesopotamia thrived between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates over 4,000 years ago. The myths collected here, originally written in cuneiform on clay tablets, include parallels with the biblical stories of the Creation and the Flood, and the famous Epic of ...

An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of Nations

a selected edition

Edited with an introduction and notes by Kathryn Sutherland. This edition contains generous selections from all five volumes of The Wealth of Nations, and places Smith's inquiry into its historical, intellectual, and cultural context.

Mary and the wrongs of woman

'I have lately written...a tale, to illustrate an opinion of mine, that a genius will educate itself.' Mary Wollstonecraft is best known for her pioneering views on the rights of women to share equal rights and opportunities with men. Expressed most forcefully in her ...

On war

On War is one of the most important books ever written on the subject of war. Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against the French during the Napoleonic Wars, sought to understand and analyze the phenomenon of war so that future leaders could conduct and ...

The return of the Native

To be loved to madness - such was her great desire' Eustacia Vye criss-crosses the wild Egdon Heath, eager to experience life to the full in her quest for 'music, poetry, passion, war'. She marries Clym Yeobright, native of the heath, but his idealism frustrates her ...

The English Constitution

'An ancient and ever-altering constitution is like an old man who still wears with attached fondness clothes in the fashion of his youth: what you see of him is the same; what you do not see is wholly altered.' Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution ...