Polity

07/10/2025

Don't miss Chang Kyung-Sup's webcast on Korea's compressed modernity and its risks

Wednesday, October 8, 2025 | 8 AM (EDT)

See more: https://www.koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/2037-koreas-compressed-modernity-and-its-risks

25/09/2025

This is SUCH an important and well-written book, by my friend Ronan McCrea.

Gay people have been the biggest winners in the liberal rights revolution. Now that revolution is being reversed. This is a book about how we won, what it means that we are starting to lose, and how to protect ourselves now. Everyone should read it.

It’s published by Polity

24/09/2025

We published eight fantastic new books this week!

📚'The Diver of Paestum: Youth, Eros, and the Sea in Ancient Greece' by Tonio Hölscher - The mysteries of Ancient Greece unravelled through a brilliant interpretation of a beautiful and enigmatic image.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-diver-of-paestum-youth-eros-and-the-sea-in-ancient-greece--9781509568130
📚'Who Owns Beauty?' by Bénédicte Savoy - A leading art historian shows what we can learn about our history by retracing the journeys of famous works of art from their origins to their destinations.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=who-owns-beauty--9781509568611
📚'Sex Robots: The End of Love' by Kathleen Richardson - A radical critique from the leading figure advocating for a complete ban on s*x robots.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=s*x-robots-the-end-of-love--9781509530281
📚'Germany' by Andrew I. Port - A fresh and insightful history of German recovery and reunification from WWII to the present.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=germany--9781509546664
📚'Existential Hope: Facing Our Future When the Signs Look Bad' by SJ Beard - Why we should be hopeful about the future of humanity in a world that’s falling apart.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=existential-hope-facing-our-future-when-the-signs-look-bad--9781509563043
📚'Witch Power: Hexing the Patriarchy with Feminist Magic' by Emma Quilty - Why we still need witches.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=witch-power-hexing-the-patriarchy-with-feminist-magic--9781509564460
📚'The Magic Kingdom and the Meaning of Life: A Philosopher Visits Disney World' by Adam Kadlac - An engaging and surprising philosophical exploration of Disney World, the “happiest place on earth”.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-magic-kingdom-and-the-meaning-of-life-a-philosopher-visits-disney-world--9781509567423
📚'The Refusalist International: A Theory of the New Protest Cycle' by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen - Why the mass protests of recent years represent a new kind of political struggle that rejects existing institutions.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-refusalist-international-a-theory-of-the-new-protest-cycle--9781509568277

19/09/2025

New York visitors and locals, don't miss an evening with Philippe Descola, author of Forms of the Visible, in conversation with Professor Elizabeth A. Povinelli

Friday, September 26, 2025 | 5pm
Albertine Books Albertine Books in French and English

Details:
https://villa-albertine.org/va/events/forms-of-the-visible-an-evening-with-distinguished-anthropologist-philippe-descola/

Villa Albertine

Descola will be joined by Elizabeth A. Povinelli, a renowned Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University.Philippe Descola compares a wide variety of visual images and artworks, establishing the theoretical foundations for an anthropology of figuration. He examines works rangi...

16/09/2025

We have some brilliant books newly out in paperback!

📚'Life With Lacan' by Catherine Millot - A beautifully written memoir on life with the greatest psychoanalyst since Freud.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=life-with-lacan--9781509525010

📚'Lineages of Modernity: A History of Humanity from the Stone Age to Homo Americanus' by Emmanuel Todd - A brilliant reinterpretation of human history from one France’s most original thinkers .
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=lineages-of-modernity-a-history-of-humanity-from-the-stone-age-to-homo-americanus--9781509534470

📚'The Metaphysics of German Idealism: A New Interpretation of Schelling's Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and Matters' by Martin Heidegger - A major work by one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, published here in English for the first time.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-metaphysics-of-german-idealism-a-new-interpretation-of-schellings-philosophical-investigations-into-the-essence-of-human-freedom-and-matters--9781509540105

📚'Schizophrenia: An Unfinished History' by Orna Ophir - A radical new understanding of schizophrenia.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=schizophrenia-an-unfinished-history--9781509536474

📚'History of the Adriatic: A Sea and Its Civilization' by Egidio Ivetic - A comprehensive history of the Adriatic Sea – the sea within a sea that is the meeting point of East and West
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=history-of-the-adriatic-a-sea-and-its-civilization--9781509552528

📚'Metaphysics and Nihilism: 1 - The Overcoming of Metaphysics 2 - The Essence of Nihilism' by Martin Heidegger - Two key texts by Heidegger on metaphysics and nihilism, now available in English for the first time.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=metaphysics-and-nihilism-1--the-overcoming-of-metaphysics-2--the-essence-of-nihilism--9781509540051

15/09/2025

“a taut and much-needed introduction to the British philosopher-statesman that should be a starting point for any student in their initiation into Burke studies.”

Ross Carroll's 'Edmund Burke' reviewed in The Review of Politics

See more:

Ross Carroll: Edmund Burke and the Varieties of Misrule. (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2024. Pp. x, 226.)

15/09/2025

The online Manosphere has exploded in recent years. For a cohort of alienated men, the promise of community provides a space of understanding, connection and purpose.

Listen to Simon Copland discuss his book 'The Male Complaint' on New Books Network

14/09/2025

For many students of philosophy in the West, philosophy is understood as a discipline stemming from Ancient Greece, embracing the great thinkers of medieval and early modern Europe and continuing through to the present day. To the extent that other philosophical traditions are taken into account, these tend to be selected philosophical traditions of Asia. Rarely is African philosophy considered in this context, even though Africa and the West are deeply interconnected through long histories of colonialism and slavery.

In this important book Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux argues that a serious engagement with African philosophy is long overdue. She shows that there is a rich tradition of philosophical thought in Africa that addresses issues ranging from the legacies of colonialism to the nature of time, the state, responsibility, identity, dignity and personhood. An engagement with African philosophy also offers a fresh perspective on Western philosophy, prompting us to interrogate ourselves and our own history. Conceptualizing African philosophy becomes a way of conceptualizing the world and of understanding how to know ourselves through the gaze of another.

African Philosophies is not so much a survey of philosophy in Africa but rather an account of how the question of African philosophy emerged in the second half of the 20th century and of what we can learn from a serious engagement with African philosophy today. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, in colonial and postcolonial studies and throughout the humanities.

African Philosophies by Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux is out now.

https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=african-philosophies--9781509558445

12/09/2025

We had four brilliant books publish in the UK recently.

📚'A Short History of Stupidity' by Stuart Jeffries - What do endless attempts to define stupidity themselves reveal about humanity?
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-short-history-of-stupidity--9781509563494

📚'The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States' by Kori Schake - A major history of U.S. civil-military relations and why they matter as much as ever.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-state-and-the-soldier-a-history-of-civil-military-relations-in-the-united-states--9781509570539

📚'Frontlash/Backlash' by Jeffrey C. Alexander - A world-leading sociologist examines Trump, the attack on Capitol Hill and the resurgence of antisemitism.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=frontlashbacklash--9781509563753

📚'The Dispossessed: The Working Classes and Their Instinct For Survival' by Christophe Guilluy -A searing critique of the social and cultural exclusion of ordinary people.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-dispossessed-the-working-classes-and-their-instinct-for-survival--9781509568451

11/09/2025

Science and technology produce a wide range of benefits in society but they also create harm, both of which are unequally distributed across social groups and geographic regions.
🧪
This incisive book provides a set of analytical tools to understand how inequality relating to science and technology is produced, and how the field can be reorganized to make good on its promise to improve life for all.
🔬
Using a range of evidence and examples, Frickel and Moore show that science and technology are closely bound up with social inequalities, including linked problems of poor health, environmental degradation, racism, and s*xism. They use the frame of “scientific inequality formations” to investigate the technoscientific sources of unequal power relations in society, examining issues such as the underdevelopment of non-profitable technologies, how laws and markets direct scientific advances, and the exclusion of certain social groups from the creation of knowledge and solutions relevant to their lives.
📡
This timely book illuminates interventions that redirect science and technology toward more equitable ends with the potential to be more widely distributed, charting a path to a more just future.

Science and Inequality: A Political Sociology by Scott Frickel & Kelly Moore is out now.

https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=science-and-inequality-a-political-sociology--9781509514793

10/09/2025

“You’re not a painter if you haven’t painted gray”, declared Paul Cézanne. 🎨

The same could be said of philosophers: you’re not a philosopher if you have never thought gray. 💭

This simple four-letter word signifies much more than a quasi-neutral color lying between black and white: we use the same word to describe moods, November skies, the hair of the elderly, the withered features of faces, dusty shelves, faceless bureaucracies, dreary politicians and hundreds of other things. This plain, unassuming word conceals a multitude of thoughts that we seldom pause to consider.

In this exceptionally original book, Peter Sloterdijk follows the grey thread through the history of philosophy, art, literature and politics, enabling us to see familiar things in new ways and highlighting features of our lives that would otherwise remain unseen. Beginning with Plato’s allegory of the cave which introduced the concept of gray into thought, Sloterdijk unfolds a chiaroscuro narrative which recognizes the power of grey as a metaphor for the indefinite, the indifferent, the ordinary, the intermediate and the neutralizing. We see the invention of photography and monochrome’s journey through modern art – from Malevich’s Black Square to Richter’s grey panel paintings – in a new light, and we see modern states and modern politics as full of grey zones, from the hidden spheres of the security services to the extraterritorial spaces that harbor illegal activities like money laundering and the drug trade.

A work of brilliance by one of the most creative philosophers writing today, If You Have Never Thought Gray will appeal to a wide readership interested in philosophy, art and politics, and to students and academics in philosophy, visual arts and the humanities generally.

If You Have Never Thought Gray: A Theory of Color by Peter Sloterdijk is out now.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=if-you-have-never-thought-gray-a-theory-of-color--9781509557486