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Philosophy & Critical Theory Books in this online selection represent only a sliver of what we offer in the store. If you've got a particular book in mind and want to check on its availability, call us at 415-362-8193.

1 2 3 4 >>>     sort list by title | publication date Ethics An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (Wo Es War) Alain Badiou Alain Badiou explodes the facile assumptions behind the recent ethical turn by governments of the West. He shows how our prevailing ethical principles serve to reinforce an ideology of the status quo and ultimately fail to provide a framework... Plato's Republic A Dialogue in 16 Chapters Alain Badiou Plato's Republic is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark... Wittgenstein's Anti-Philosophy Alain Badiou Alain Badiou takes on the standard bearer of the "linguistic turn" in modern philosophy, and anatomizes the “anti-philosophy” of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Addressing the crucial moment where Wittgenstein argues that much has to be passed over in silence... Camera Lucida Reflections on Photography Roland Barthes A graceful, contemplative volume, Camera Lucida was first published in 1979. Commenting on artists such as Avedon, Clifford, Mapplethorpe, and Nadar, Roland Barthes presents photography as being outside the codes of language or culture, acting on the... A Lover's Discourse Fragments Roland Barthes A Lover’s Discourse, at its 1978 publication, was revolutionary: Roland Barthes made unprecedented use of the tools of structuralism to explore the whimsical phenomenon of love. Rich with references ranging from Goethe’s Werther to Winnicott, from... The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin You could spend years trying to read Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project--after all, he spent much of the last 13 years of his life doing the research. When he committed suicide in 1940, he destroyed his copy of the manuscript, and so for decades... Berlin Childhood around 1900 Walter Benjamin Begun in Poveromo, Italy, in 1932, and extensively revised in 1938, Berlin Childhood around 1900 remained unpublished during Walter Benjamin's lifetime, one of his "large-scale defeats." Now translated into English for the first time in book form... On Hashish Walter Benjamin Walter Benjamin's posthumously published collection of writings on hashish is a detailed blueprint for a book that was never written--a "truly exceptional book about hashish," as Benjamin describes it in a letter to his friend Gershom Scholem. A... Reflections Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings Walter Benjamin A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin's writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and... The Writer of Modern Life Essays on Charles Baudelaire Walter Benjamin Walter Benjamin's essays on the great French lyric poet Charles Baudelaire revolutionized not just the way we think about Baudelaire, but our understanding of modernity and modernism as well. In these essays, Benjamin challenges the image of... Ways of Seeing Based on the BBC Television Series John Berger John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series... A Wicked Company The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment Philipp Blom The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach's Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach's house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring... Phantoms on the Bookshelves Jacques Bonnet The enthralling memoir on the art of living with books Phantoms on the Bookshelves considers how our personal libraries reveal our true natures: far more than merely crowded shelves, they are living labyrinths of our innermost feelings. Imperial San Francisco Urban Power, Earthly Ruin Gray Brechin First published in 1999, this celebrated history of San Francisco traces the exploitation of both local and distant regions by prominent families--the Hearsts, de Youngs, Spreckelses, and others--who gained power through mining, ranching, water and... 1 2 3 4 >>>