Polity

21/11/2025

We have five new books publishing in the UK today!

📚'The Rise of Dogwhistle Politics' by Deborah Cameron - What does the rise of dogwhistle politics reveal about our faith in the power of language?
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-rise-of-dogwhistle-politics--9781509569007

📚'A Brief History of the Economy' by Daniel Cohen - A concise history of the economy and of economic thinking by a leading economist.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-brief-history-of-the-economy--9781509568307

📚'The Racialized Brain: The Neurosociology of Race and Racism' by Rengin Firat - Are our brains wired for recism?
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-racialized-brain-the-neurosociology-of-race-and-racism--9781509557943

📚'The Republic of Innovation: A New Political Economy of Freedom' by Andrea Lorenzo Capussela - How true freedom can foster innovation and lead societies to prosperity.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-republic-of-innovation-a-new-political-economy-of-freedom--9781509564828

📚'Child Influencers: How Children Become Entangled with Social Media Fame' by Crystal Abidin - The first comprehensive book that frames the historical and contemporary phenomenon of child influencers.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=child-influencers-how-children-become-entangled-with-social-media-fame--9781509568024

19/11/2025

We are living, it is often said, in a golden age of stupidity, in which boneheaded, mendacious politicians get elected by voters who’ve become too mindless to realize their interests are ill served by narcissists, while vapid social media influencers corrupt their no less witless followers with groundless conspiracy theories and eye-wateringly foolish takedowns of scientific expertise. Our time, one might be forgiven for thinking, is one in which the fool’s gold of stupidity has become a desirable commodity, a must-have, with bumbling celebrities venerated more than those who have more than two brain cells to rub together.

In this book, Stuart Jeffries analyses how we got into this parlous state and wonders if the stupid, like the poor, are always with us, or if, rather, stupidity is like Japanese knotweed, difficult to root out but to be exterminated with extreme prejudice. He considers what some of the greatest of minds – Socrates, Buddha, Voltaire, Arendt, and others – have to tell us about the slippery nature of stupidity.
In

During a narrative that takes us from ancient Greece to artificial intelligence, and accompanied by such heroes of stupidity as Flaubert’s double act Bouvard and Pécuchet, Jeffries casts a sceptical eye on attempts to root out stupidity by such means as IQ tests, eugenics, gene editing, and racist education policies, finding each attempt to be more stupid than the stupidity they were ostensibly devised to eradicate. If today we are living in a fool’s paradise, has our species become too dim to learn anything from its rich history of folly?

A Short History of Stupidity by Stuart Jeffries is now available worldwide.
See more: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-short-history-of-stupidity--9781509563494

18/11/2025

We are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in American history. What are we going to do about it?

Around 100,000 Americans died of a drug overdose last year – nearly double the number who died in Vietnam. More than 1,000,000 have perished since 2000, thanks largely to an explosion of fentanyl and other addictive opioids. But fentanyl, abundant methamphetamine, and other lethal drugs are not the only things that are killing us: our policy is. So far, America has lacked the will to do better. That must change, and this book tells us how.

No one is immune, which is why Kevin Sabet has authored this remarkable book. Sabet, dubbed the “the quarterback of the new anti-drug movement” by Salon, has spent most of his life battling the destructive effects of drugs. In One Nation Under the Influence, he asks hard questions and provides clear answers, taking readers from the streets of San Francisco and New York to the southern border, up to Canada, and across to Europe to show how we can chart a necessary way forward. The solutions are out there, if only we have the will to apply them.

One Nation Under the Influence: America's Drug Habit and How We Can Overcome It by Kevin A. Sabet is out now and available worldwide.

See more: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=one-nation-under-the-influence-americas-drug-habit-and-how-we-can-overcome-it--9781509560707

17/11/2025

“Ghosting” has become an almost inevitable part of modern life – not just on dating sites, but among friends, family and even professional colleagues. But what’s behind this act of digital disappearance, and what does it say about how we relate to each other today?

Listen to Dominic Pettman on KQED

We look at how technology that makes it easier to disappear on people has also made ghosting more socially acceptable, despite its emotional toll.

17/11/2025

“Read him and, whatever you do, don’t weep.”
The Telegraph The Telegraph select 'I Suffer Therefore I am' by Pascal Bruckner as one of the Best Books of 2025.

Our critics review hundreds of books a year. Here are their favourites from 2025, from fiction and crime to memoir and history

14/11/2025

In a humane world, cruelty should not exist, and yet it has been a feature of our societies since time immemorial. From individual acts of cruelty to systematic torture and mass murder, cruelty has been humanity’s constant companion, attesting to a darker side of human nature.

In this wide-ranging cultural history, Wolfgang Müller-Funk examines the ways in which different thinkers and authors – from Herodotus to Nietzsche, from Seneca to Musil and Koestler – have conceptualized and tried to make sense of a phenomenon we would prefer to ignore.

Cruelty: A Cultural History by Wolfgang Müller-Funk. Out today in the UK.

https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=cruelty-a-cultural-history--9781509563951

11/11/2025

Four brilliant new books out now in the UK!

📚'The Philosophy of Love, S*x, and Relationships' by Luke Brunning & Natasha McKeever - A fresh and contemporary philosophical look at love and s*x, which speaks to the lived experiences of students.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-philosophy-of-love-s*x-and-relationships--9781509551491

📚'Superweak: Thinking in the 21st Century' by Laurent de Sutter - A dismantling of our preoccupation with critique and critical thinking.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=superweak-thinking-in-the-21st-century--9781509566464

📚'Inside Digital Advertising: Platforms, Power, and Material Politics' by Donald MacKenzie & Koray Caliskan - A book that lays bare the processes that underpin today’s global digital advertising industry.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=inside-digital-advertising-platforms-power-and-material-politics--9781509568635

📚'The Chauvinist Threat: Russia's War and the West's Response' by Sabine Fischer - Why Russian chauvinism is key to understanding Russia’s war against Ukraine and its threat to liberal democracies.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-chauvinist-threat-russias-war-and-the-wests-response--9781509567713

31/10/2025

Two books out today in the UK!

📚'Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI' by Nick Srnicek - A penetrating analysis of the economic forces shaping the future of AI.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=silicon-empires-the-fight-for-the-future-of-ai--9781509550487

📚'Pornocracy' by Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel - A devastating examination of how society has been mentally colonised by p**n.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=p**nocracy--9781509565139

30/10/2025

“A marvel of narrative art … it’s the very best book I’ve read in quite a while.”
Sara Dowse reviews 'Marseille 1940' by Uwe Wittstock for
Inside Story

Visit the post for more.

22/10/2025

Two brilliant books just published in the UK.

📚'Chinese Platforms: A Critical Introduction' by Jian Lin, Wilfred Yang Wang, Ping Sun: The rise of the Chinese internet has reconfigured digital culture around the world. From social media platforms such as Tik Tok, WeChat and Douyin to utility platforms Didi and Eleme, the Chinese platform economy has shown a remarkable capability of innovation and growth, receiving great limitation as well as protection from the Chinese state. This is the first textbook to centre Chinese platforms and offer a critical introduction to their history, governance and social-political implications.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=chinese-platforms-a-critical-introduction--9781509559176

📚'Fighting Polarisation: Shared Communicative Spaces in Divided Democracies' by Cherian George : Polarisation — the division of society into antagonistic “us-them” groups — is a global phenomenon undermining democracy in many societies. These divides are constructed, perpetuated, and toxified through communication. In the first global study of its kind, Cherian George demonstrates how people can counter polarisation through communicative practices.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=fighting-polarisation-shared-communicative-spaces-in-divided-democracies--9781509564552

21/10/2025

“Engrossing … Marseille 1940 helps set the record straight of a man who saved thousands when the United States was turning away those huddled masses yearning for freedom. In these reactionary times, when millions of refugees are at risk all across the world, Wittstock’s book ought to shame us all into action.”
-Morten Høi Jensen,
Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) review 'Marseille 1940: The Flight of Literature'.

Morten Høi Jensen reviews Uwe Wittstock’s “Marseille 1940: The Flight of Literature,” translated by Daniel Bowles.