"Whenever I was asked: 'Why did you go to Santiago?', I had a hard time answering. How could I explain to those who had not done it that the way has the effect - if not the virtue - to make you forget all reasons that led you to become involved in it in the first place."Each year, tens of thousands of backpackers (Christian pilgrims and many others) set out from either their front ...

First published in 1967, Guy Debord's stinging revolutionary critique ofcontemporary society, The Society of the Spectacle has since acquired acult status. Credited by many as being the inspiration for the ideasgenerated by the events of May 1968 in France, Debord's pitiless attackon commodity fetishism and its incrustation in the practices of everydaylife continues to burn brightly in today's age of satellite televisionand the soundbite. In Comments on the Society of the Spec...

It is 1915. Jean Dartemont is just a young man. He is not a rebel, but neither is he awed by authority and when he's called up and given only the most rudimentary training, he refuses to follow his platoon. Instead, he is sent to Artois, where he experiences the relentless death and violence of the trenches. His reprieve finally comes when he is wounded, evacuated and hospitalised.The nurses consider it their duty to stimulate the soldiers' fighting spirit, and so ask Jean what he ...

Are women's orgasms more intense than men's? What did Andr� Breton think of homosexuality? Can love be separated from physical desire?In 1928 a group of surrealist writers and artists held twelve round table discussions to address these questions. Calling them "researches into sexuality," their bizarre and humorous conversations are now made available in this new edition in all their surreal and salacious detail. Their research spanned the most critical period for surrealism, a time...

A refreshing distillation of insights into the human condition, by one of the best-known and most popular philosophers in the UK.Thinking about life, what it means and what it holds in store does not have to be a despondent experience, but rather can be enlightening and uplifting. A life truly worth living is one that is informed and considered so a degree of philosophical insight into the inevitabilities of the human condition is inherently important and such an a...

**THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERFrom one of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, Religion for Atheists and The School of Life -** Alain de Botton sets out to understand our universal fear of failure - and how we might change it'De Botton's gift is to prompt us to think about how we live and how we might change things' The TimesWe all w...

Not since Christopher Hitchens assault on Mother Theresa have so many sacred cows been slaughtered in such a short volume.' Spectator 'One of our most celebrated essayists.' Toby Young, Mail on Sunday '[A] cultural highlight.' Observer 'Surgical demolition.' Guardian In this perceptive and witty book, Theodore Dalrymple unmasks the hidden sentimentality that is suffocating public life. Under the multiple guises of raising children well, caring for the underprivileged, assisting the less ab...

'What a book.' Clive Aslet, Country Life 'Characteristically brilliant.' Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times 'A little oasis of sanity.' Daily Mail. Driving the four hundred miles from Glasgow to London, Theodore Dalrymple found practically every yard of roadside to be littered with rubbish flapping in the wind like Buddhist prayer flags. What does it say about a culture when a country tips its rubbish anywhere it likes? Ranging from the poorer areas where he used to work to chewing gum and the b...

In this incisive and beautifully-written collection of essays retired doctor Theodore Dalrymple writes about subjects as diverse as the legalisation of drugs, the death of Princess Diana and Marxism.Each of the twenty six essys are a gem and Dalrymple writes with an insight and clarity that make them individually enlightening and enjoyable to read. They address a variety of subjects — from art and literature to drugs and colonialism, from Shakespeare to rock singer Marilyn Manson —...

This book is about the central figure of our contemporary, ‘liquid modern’ times – the man or woman with no bonds, and particularly with none of the fixed or durable bonds that would allow the effort of self-definition and self-assertion to come to a rest. Having no permanent bonds, the denizen of our liquid modern society must tie whatever bonds they can to engage with others, using their own wits, skill and dedication. But none of these bonds are guaranteed to last. Moreover, they must b...

In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a 'heavy' and 'solid', hardware-focused modernity to a 'light' and 'liquid', software-based modernity. This passage, he argues, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un-reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under-defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life-politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts an...

Western Europe is in a strangely neurotic condition of being smug and terrified at the same time. On the one hand, Europeans believe they have at last created an ideal social and political system in which man can live comfortably. In many ways, things have never been better on the old continent. On the other hand, there is growing anxiety that Europe is quickly falling behind in an aggressive, globalized world. Europe is at the forefront of nothing, its demographics are rapidly transformin...