Tracing the rise and spread of Buddhism from its roots, WD shows the dominance of Indian culture in the ancient and early medieval worlds. The author's customary grace, zest and elegance ren... read more
Robert Byron's account of his travels and lingerings on Mount Athos in 1927, aged twenty-five year. A wonderful re-issue by Eland of his first book, super-abundant with joy, wit and intellig... read more
Yes, this is a book on how to read the first Book of the Bible - from one of the world's truly luminous novelists, the Calvinist author of Gilead, Home, Lila and Jack.
An investigation of Jesus' messianic contemporaries and the reasons for Christianity's success. From the author of the highly regarded The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Cla... read more
CC withdrew to an enclosed world in her mid-20s, to emerge a decade later. This memoir of her private struggles and of tension within the institution is both moving and unexpectedly gripping... read more
From the emergence of tyranny to the malaise of ennui, LS surveys how Hannah Arendt's life and work can help us confront the perils of contemporary post-truth politics.
The C10th synthesis of Greek thought in Central Asi. Starr's magnificent book is a cultural and intellectual history of the Islamic Enlightenment and its two chief proponents - Ibn Sina and ... read more
Orme is back with another piece of medieval social history. Here he traces the development of 62 English cathedrals and describes the life and activities that occurred within their walls.
The first English translation of this often overlooked French intellectual's last lecture, in which Aron emphasises the importance of liberal democracy during the tumultuous years of the Col... read more
This rich historical analysis argues that the Enlightenment was a failure on its own terms. Terror, revolution, corruption, gross commercial excess and Empire prevailed instead of Reason.
800 years of cave paintings, from the C2nd BC to the C6th CE: a revised edition with digitally restored images, and a new introduction by Dalrymple who has been researching the history of Bu... read more
A keen look at contemporary history through the eyes of Hobbes. Gray suggests that the philosopher would not be at all confident that our cheerful liberalism will dissolve the horrors and ha... read more
Although never the language of a state or ethnic group, Syriac remains widely used across the globe and is regarded as the third language of Christianity. It even reached China, thanks to th... read more
His last book Time of the Magicians was a group biography of Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Cassirer. Here, he looks at four women who created new ways of thinking in the aftermath of... read more
'Drawing from such diverse sources as Newton's Principia, military manuals, eighteenth-century games, and cookbooks among others, Lorraine Daston seeks to define the role rules have played i... read more
The philosophical innovations of Sappho, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Homer and others. The first time since The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters that this excellent writer has turned t... read more
Breathtaking photographs of desolate and mostly ruinous buildings in vast, often snow-dusted landscapes. Published earlier this year in Germany with the text in English, this is a rare treas... read more
This is a bewitching and sympathetic account of a deliciously odd, brilliantly clever man. He was prone to headstands, toothbrushing and - like Lord Lundy - to tears.
Any book from SB is always eagerly awaited, this one no less than its marvellous predecessors How to Live: A Life of Montaigne and At The Existentialist Caf?.
Looks at the lives of Ryle, Austin, Anscombe and Murdoch and how they transformed moral philosophy in C20th Britain. No rose-tinted specs here, just the plainest tortoise-shell frames...
A new translation of the fundamental text of Daoism, much more dynamic than the comfortably gnomic ones of the past. Ziporyn restores its strangeness and philosophical challenges.
Indian folk rituals and rites, customs and celebrations, presented through a sequence of photographic portraits. With contributions by Anuradha Roy, Catherine Clement and Kuha Kopariha.
The tricky business of merging the inner world with the outer - a balancing act that the generous Iyer has been practising for decades now, in Tibet, Japan, Korea, Iran and elsewhere.
Translation and interpretation are not straightforward, and never were... With matchless scholarship and sensitivity, Dr Barton compares multiple readings to reveal their ambiguities and int... read more