This “passionate affirmation of the simple life, and joy in simple things” explores how walking influenced history’s greatest thinkers—from Henry David Thoreau and Jack Kerouac to Gandhi and Nietzsche (Observer).In this French bestseller, leading thinker and philosopher Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B—the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble—and reveals what they say about us.Gros draws att...

The best-selling author of A Philosophy of Walking returns to address the eternal subject of human conflictRussia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to many like a throwback to another age, rattling Europe with memories of past horrors. But since the end of the Second World War there has not been a single day without armed conflict somewhere in the world. Drawing on the great political philosophers, from Plato to Marx, via Machiavelli and Hobbes, Frédéric Gros at...

Exploring the philosophy of disobedienceThe world is out of joint, so much so that disobeying should be an urgent question for everyone. In this provocative essay, Frédéric Gros explores the roots of political obedience. Social conformity, economic subjection, respect for authorities, constitutional consensus? Examining the various styles of obedience provides tools to study, invent and induce new forms of civic disobedience and lyrical protest. Nothing can be take...

The idea of security—from ancient Greece to the War on TerrorIn The Security Principle, French philosopher Frédéric Gros takes a historical approach to the concept of security, looking at its evolution from the Stoics to the social network. With lucidity and rigour, Gros’s approach is fourfold, looking at security as a mental state, as developed by the Greeks; as an objective situation and absence of all danger, as prevailed in the Middle Ages; as guarante...

The fourth and final volume in Michel Foucault’s acclaimed History of Sexuality, completed just before his death in 1984 and finally available to the publicOne of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault made an indelible impact on Western thought. The first three volumes in his History of Sexuality—which trace cultural and intellectual notions of sexuality, arguing that it has been profoundly shaped by the power str...

This book addresses the possibilities of analyzing the modern international through the thought of Michel Foucault. The broad range of authors brought together in this volume question four of the most self-evident characteristics of our contemporary world-'international', 'neoliberal', 'biopolitical' and 'global'- and thus fill significant gaps in both international and Foucault studies. The chapters discuss what a Foucauldian perspective does or does not offer for understanding internatio...

“The working hypothesis is this: it is true that sexuality as experience is obviously not independent of codes and systems of prohibitions, but it needs to be recalled straightaway that these codes are astonishingly stable, continuous, and slow to change. It needs to be recalled also that the way in which they are observed or transgressed also seems to be very stable and very repetitive. On the other hand, the point of historical mobility, what no doubt change most often, what are most fra...

An original reflection on shame as the central feeling of our age — the expression of an anger that is the necessary condition for new strugglesCan shame become a source of political strength? Faced with injustice, growing inequality and systemic violence, we cry out in shame. We feel ashamed of obscene wealth amid wider deprivation. We feel ashamed of humanity for its ruthless and relentless exploitation of the earth. We feel ashamed of the racism and sexism that ...

This "passionate affirmation of the simple life, and joy in simple things" explores how walking influenced history's greatest thinkers—from Henry David Thoreau and Jack Kerouac to Gandhi and Nietzsche (Observer).In this French bestseller, leading thinker and philosopher Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B—the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble—and reveals what they s...

One of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault made an indelible impact on Western thought. The first three volumes in his History of Sexuality constitute some of Foucault's most important work. This fourth volume posits that the origins of totalitarian self-surveillance began with the Christian practice of confession. The manuscript had long been secreted away, in accordance with Foucault's stated wish that there be no posthumous publication of his...

The history of pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress—and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism.

When Pepper Stetler was told that her daughter who has Down Syndrome would be regularly required to take IQ tests to secure support in school, she asked a simple question: why? In questioning the authority and relevance of the test, Stetler sets herself on a winding investigation into how the IQ test came to be the irrefutable standard for measuring intelligence. The unsettling history causes Stetler to wonder what influence this test will have over her daughter's future and whether Louisa...