A moving exploration of the place of hope in the world today, drawing on agrarian principles. In this series of meditations, Norman Wirzba recasts hope not as something people have, like a vaccine to prevent pain and trouble, but as something peopl...

The untold story of how the volcanic landscape surrounding Naples influenced a crucial moment in twentieth-century intellectual history. In the 1920s, the Gulf of Naples was a magnet for European intellectuals in search of places as yet untouched b...

A deep dive into the nature of translation from one of its most acclaimed practitioners. Avoiding theoretical debates and cliched metaphors, award‑winning translator Damion Searls has written a fresh, approachable, and convincing account of what tr...

A dazzling exploration of our wishes for innocence and ignorance – and their consequences. Aristotle claimed that "all human beings want to know". Yet we also want not to know. Centuries after the Enlightenment, mesmerised crowds still follow prep...

A world-renowned philosopher's genre-defying exploration of the mystery of consciousness. In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and...

A powerful exploration of the human capacity for renewal, as seen through Shakespeare and Freud. In this fresh investigation, Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips explore how the second chance has been an essential feature of the literary imaginati...

An illuminating biography reconstructing the life and legacy of a unique king in world history and the most famous emperor in South Asian history. There are few historical figures more integral to South Asian history than Emperor Ashoka, a third-ce...

A clear-sighted and entertaining defence of literary realism, and an account of its key practitioners. Realist fiction is one of the most enduring artforms history has ever witnessed. By describing the intricate inner life of its characters, or wid...

Hannah Arendt spoke of the banality of evil–the normalisation of the unutterable, simply because that was how things were in any given place and time. Is evil really so disappointing? We expect evil to be dramatic, unfathomable and remarkable; the...

How Freud's concept of the super-ego can help us to understand the harsh cultural climate of the digital age. Cancellation, scapegoating, raving on Twitter. How did the Internet, which began as a place for open thought and exchange, become a forum...