(Paperback, UK ed.)

Sigmund Freuds controversial ideas have penetrated Western culture more deeply than those of any other psychologist. But psychoanalysis was never just a method of treatment, rather a vision of the human condition which has continued to fascinate and provoke long after the death of its originator.

(Paperback)

Marxs critique of the capitalist system is rife with big themes: his theory of surplus value, his discussion of the exploitation of the working class, and his forecast of class conflict on a grand scale.

(Paperback, New edition)

Tocqueville examines the structures, institution and operation of democracy, and analyzes the lessons that Europe could learn from American successes and failures. It continues to be an influential text on both sides of the Atlantic, especially in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.

(Paperback)

"Symposium" gives an account of the sparkling society that was Athens at the height of her empire. The other dialogues collected here under the title "The Death of Socrates" tell the tale of how Socrates was put on trial for impiety, found guilty and sentenced to death.

(Paperback, New edition)

Dating for around 300 BC, this is an early work of the Chinese school of philosophy called Taoism. It offers a complete view of the cosmos and how human beings should respond to it. It has mystical insight into the nature of things and forms a basis for a humane morality and political utopia.

(Paperback)

The two political works in this text are the product of a time of intense turmoil in Chinese history. Dating from an epoch in Chinese history known as the "Period of the Warring States" (4003 - 221 BC), they anticipate by nearly 2000 years Niccolo Machiavelli's treatises on the same subjects.

(Paperback)

In a world where capitalism is no longer held in check by fear of a communist alternative, The Communist Manifesto (with Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Engels's brief and clear exposition of Marxist thought) is essential reading. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is Engels's first, and probably best-known, book.

(Paperback, New edition)

Published between 1776 and 1788, this text is acknowledged as a masterpiece of English historical writing. Covering the history of Europe from the 2nd-century AD, to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, this edition includes footnotes, explanatory comments, and a precis of the chapters not included.

(Paperback)

Writing his "Comedy" (the epithet "Divine" was added by later admirers) in exile from his native Florence, Dante aimed to address a world gone astray both morally and politically. It tells the story of a character who is at one and the same time both Dante himself and Everyman.

(Paperback, New edition)

This text presents Freud's theory that man is unable to tolerate too much reality, and that dreams are the contraband representations of the beast within man which are smuggled into awareness during sleep. The analysis of dreams is the key to unlocking the vital secrets of the unconscious mind.

(Paperback, New edition)

Darwin's theory of natural selection is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological inter-relatedness revealing the almost unthinkably complex and mutual inter-dependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment and - by implication - the human world.

(Paperback, New edition)

First published in the 1920s, this book attempts to provide the reader with a guide to living. Gibran lets his protagonist, called simply the prophet, deliver homilies on a variety of topics central to daily life: love marriage and children, work and play, possessions, beauty, truth, joy and sorrow and death.

(Paperback, New edition)

In this translated classic, Rousseau argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. He says that we can only be free under the law by voluntarily embracing that law as our own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate all our desires to the collective good, the general will.

(Paperback)

Includes three works, all dating from Nietzsche's last lucid months, that aim show him at his most stimulating and controversial: the portentous utterances of the prophet (together with the ill-defined figure of the Ubermensch) are forsaken, as wit, exuberance and dazzling insights predominate.

(Paperback, UK ed.)

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is the first book of modern political economy, and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. Along with important discussions of economics and political theory, it mixes plain common sense with large measures of history, philosophy, psychology and sociology.

(Paperback, UK ed.)

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke concerns the foundation of human knowledge and understanding, and is one of the classic philosophical works of the seventeenth century.

(Paperback, New edition)

Boccaccio's Decameron recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our own day.

(Paperback, New edition)

First published in a posthumous edition of 1677, this work by Spinoza is a systematic attempt to work out the nature of God, the relation between mind and body, human psychology, and the best way to live.

(Paperback)

Based on the fable of a man who traded his soul for superhuman powers and knowledge, this text became the life work of Germany's greatest poet, Goethe. It is the dramatic poem that charts the life of a deeply flawed individual and his fight against despair and the nihilism of the Mephistopheles.

(Paperback, New edition)

This work comprises the first western historical writing. It provides a history of the then known world, and provides answers to questions such as: why did Pheidippides run from Marathon to Athens and why did Leonides and the Spartans comb their hair before the battle of Thermopylae.

(Paperback)

Human, All Too Human (1878) marks the point where Nietzsche abandons German romanticism for the French Enlightenment. The result is one of the cornerstones of his life's work. Beyond Good and Evil (1886) is a scathing and powerful critique of philosophy, religion and science.

(Paperback)

Rene Descartes has been described as the "father" of modern philosophy. This selection of Descartes' writings attempt to answer central questions surrounding self, God, free-will and knowledge, using the science of thought as opposed to received wisdom based on the tenets of faith.

(Paperback, UK ed.)

In Leviathan, Hobbes presents us with a portrait of politics which depicts how a state that is made up of the unified body of all its citizens will be powerful, fruitful, protective of each of its members, and - above all - free from internal violence

(Paperback)

An account of life below the margins in the greatest Metropolis in the world and a portrait of the habits, tastes, amusements, appearance, speech, humour, earnings and opinions of the labouring poor at the time of the Great Exhibition.