Translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an (also known as The Koran) is the sacred book of Islam. It is the word of God whose truth was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years. As it was revealed, so it was committed to memory by his companions, though written copies were also made by literate believers during the lifetime of the Prophet.The first full compilation was by Abu Bakar, the first Caliph, and it was th...

The philosophy of Ancient Greece provides the background of Western ethical thought and politics. In this approachable introduction, Tom Griffith, a leading translator of Plato, covers the main ground from the Pre-Socratics through Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans. In each case, the figures are introduced before a compilation of key texts in lively translations.

A fascinating exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives, helping to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mindAll our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfillin...

Few writers have had a more demonstrable impact on the development of the modern world than has Karl Marx (1818-1883). Born in Trier into a middle-class Jewish family in 1818, by the time of his death in London in 1883, Marx claimed a growing international reputation.Of central importance then and later was his book Das Kapital, or, as it is known to English readers, simply Capital. Volume One of Capital was published in Paris in 1867 and is included in t...

As Angus Calder states in his introduction to this edition, 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom is one of the major statements about the fighting experience of the First World War'. Lawrence's younger brothers, Frank and Will, had been killed on the Western Front in 1915. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, written between 1919 and 1926, tells of the vastly different campaign against the Turks in the Middle East - one which encompasses gross acts of cruelty and revenge and ends in a welter of stink and corpses ...

Translated by A.A. Brill With an Introduction by Stephen Wilson.Sigmund Freud's audacious masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, has never ceased to stimulate controversy since its publication in 1900.Freud is acknowledged as the founder of psychoanalysis, the key to unlocking the human mind, a task which has become essential to man's survival in the twentieth century, as science and technology have rushed ahead of our ability to cope with thei...

With an Introduction by Professor Stuart Sim.John Bunyan was variously a tinker, soldier, Baptist minister, prisoner and writer of outstanding narrative genius which reached its apotheosis in this, his greatest work. It is an allegory of the Christian life of true brilliance and is presented as a dream which describes the pilgrimage of the hero - Christian - from the City of Destruction via the Slough of Despond, the Hill of Difficulty, the Valley of the Shadow of ...

No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us.Winner of the Ernest Scott Prize and shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction'A rare feat of imagination and generosity.'– Mark McKennaWith every sentence they write, historians must walk the tightrope between discipline and imagination, empathy and evidence. In this landmark work, ...

With an introduction by Charlotte R. Brown and William Edward Morris.David Hume (1711–1776) was the most important philosopher ever to write in English, as well as a master stylist. This volume contains his major philosophical works. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), published while Hume was still in his twenties, consists of three books on the understanding, the passions, and morals. It applies the experimental method of reasoning to human nature in...

Translated by C.E.Detmold. With an Introduction by Lucille Margaret Kekewich.Written in 1513 for the Medici, following their return to power in Florence, The Prince is a handbook on ruling and the exercise of power. It remains as relevant today as it was in the sixteenth century. Widely quoted in the Press and in academic publications, The Prince has direct relevance to the issues of business and corporate governance confronting global corporations as they...

This translation first appeared in a privately printed edition in 1904 (the translator remains anonymous).With an Introduction by Derek Matravers.When it was first published in 1781, The Confessions scandalised Europe with its emotional honesty and frank treatment of the author's sexual and intellectual development. Since then, it has had a more profound impact on European thought. Rousseau left posterity a model of the reflective ...

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) began his celebrated diary on 1st January 1660 immediately prior to the Restoration of Charles II to the throne and the subsequent loosening of the rigid moral and social code enforced during the Puritan Commonwealth. As variously Clerk to the Council, a Member of Parliament, a prisoner in the Tower of London, twice Secretary to the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society, Pepys was in a unique position to observe and record in detail a fascinating ten-year pe...