Polity Press

How can the left be credible when it can't decide what a woman is? How can antiracists fight for equality if they promote fictions about race? If identity politics is the answer, why are so many...

In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of...

From the fraught world of geopolitics to business and the academy, it's more vital than ever that Westerners and East Asians understand how each other thinks. As Jin Li shows in this groundbreaking...

Why did the West become so rich? Why is inequality rising? How 'free' should markets be? And what does sex have to do with it? In this passionate and skilfully argued book, leading feminist Victoria...

Over the past thirty years, humanity has made a huge mistake. We handed over to big tech decisions that have allowed them to build what has become our "space of the world" - the highly artificial...

Over the past thirty years, humanity has made a huge mistake. We handed over to big tech decisions that have allowed them to build what has become our "space of the world" - the highly artificial...

A war is being waged against the Past. Whether it's toppling statues, decolonising the curriculum or erasing terms from our vocabulary, a cultural crusade is underway designed to render the past...

Trans seems to be everywhere in American culture. Yet there is little understanding of how this came about. Are people aware that there were earlier periods of gender flexibility and contestability...

"Alcibiades attempted to seduce Socrates, he wanted to make him, and in the most openly avowed way possible, into someone instrumental and subordinate to what? To the object of Alcibiades's desire -...

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has stirred passions like no other trade negotiation in recent history. Its supporters maintain that TTIP will produce spectacular growth and...

The global triumph of democracy was announced thirty years ago, promising an age of consensus in which the dispassionate consideration of objective problems would give birth to a world at peace...

Understanding Development offers a comprehensive introduction to the multidimensional and evolving nature of international development in the contemporary world. This new edition has been fully...

People in poverty suffer daily under misconceptions about economic hardship and its causes. Providing the most comprehensive consideration to date of poverty in the United States, Elizabeth Seale...

Undisciplined is an odyssey into possibility. Challenging us to break free from limiting strictures and structures, it encourages readers to envision just futures and reflect on the inner...

Undisciplined is an odyssey into possibility. Challenging us to break free from limiting strictures and structures, it encourages readers to envision just futures and reflect on the inner...

Utilitarianism - a commitment to 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number' - has been the target of endless opposition. According to its critics, it ignores the separateness of persons, cannot...

Utilitarianism - a commitment to 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number' - has been the target of endless opposition. According to its critics, it ignores the separateness of persons, cannot...

In our busy and hurried lives, we are losing the ability to be inactive. Human existence becomes fully absorbed by activity - even leisure, treated as a respite from work, becomes part of the same...

After the Cold War, Africa earned the dubious distinction of being the world's most bloody continent. But how can we explain this proliferation of armed conflicts? What caused them and what were...

After the Cold War, Africa earned the dubious distinction of being the world's most bloody continent. But how can we explain this proliferation of armed conflicts? What caused them and what were...

Who are refugees? Who, if anyone, is responsible for protecting them? What forms should this protection take? In a world of people fleeing from civil wars, state failure, and environmental disasters,...

The rise of digital technology is transforming the world in which we live. Our digitalized societies demand new ways of thinking about the social, and this short book introduces readers to an...

What does it mean to say that there is a feminist sociology? And how might we engage the full potential of a "feminist sociological imagination"? These questions lie at the heart of Jo Reger's slim...

What does it mean to say that there is a feminist sociology? And how might we engage the full potential of a "feminist sociological imagination"? These questions lie at the heart of Jo Reger's slim...

The third edition of What is Military History? has been thoroughly updated, and includes a new bibliography and new case studies on naval warfare and the origins of war, as well as expanded sections...

The eyes of the world are on the Middle East. Today, more than ever, this deeply-troubled region is the focus of power games between major global players vying for international influence. Absent...

Seven decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations and programs are perpetually in crisis. While the twentieth-century's world wars gave rise to...

Even as growing polarization and hyper-partisanship define society and politics at home, American leaders seem to agree on one thing: US military dominance abroad is essential for national security...

Even as growing polarization and hyper-partisanship define society and politics at home, American leaders seem to agree on one thing: US military dominance abroad is essential for national security...

With the collapse of traditional parties around the world and with many pundits predicting a "crisis of democracy", the value of elections as a method for selecting by whom and how we are governed is...