Being & Nothingness is without doubt one of the most significant philosophical books of the 20th century. This central work by one of the century's most influential thinkers, Jean-Paul Sartre, altered the course of western philosophy. Its revolutionary approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individual's relationship with the world.

Known as 'the Bible of existentialism', its impact on culture and literature was immediate and was felt worldwide, from the absurdist drama of Samuel Beckett to the soul-searching cries of the Beat poets. Being & Nothingness is one of those rare books whose influence has affected the mindset of subsequent generations.

Seventy years after its first publication, its message remains as potent as ever—challenging readers to confront the fundamental dilemmas of human freedom, choice, responsibility, and action.

Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits is a remarkable collection of almost 1,400 aphorisms penned by the renowned philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. This collection was first published in three installments, with the first volume appearing in 1878, just before Nietzsche left academic life due to health issues. It was later republished in a two-volume edition in 1886.

This work marks a significant shift in Nietzsche's philosophical approach, showcasing his new "positivism" and skepticism. Here, Nietzsche challenges his earlier metaphysical and psychological assumptions with characteristic perceptiveness and honesty, not to mention suspicion and irony.

In this wide-ranging work, Nietzsche first employed his celebrated aphoristic style, perfectly suited to his iconoclastic, penetrating, and multi-faceted thought. Many themes of his later works make their initial appearance here, expressed with unforgettable liveliness and subtlety. This book well deserves its subtitle, "A Book for Free Spirits," and its original dedication to Voltaire, whose project of radical enlightenment found a new champion in Nietzsche.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.A work of extraordinary ambition, originality, and rigor, Capital in the Twenty-First Century reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

Charles Darwin’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke, but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later.

Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. In The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of ‘Intelligent Design’ and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection.

Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects, the ‘time clocks’ of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution, the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors, to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics. All of this, and much more, bears witness to the truth of evolution.

The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America. In Britain and elsewhere in the world, teachers witness insidious attempts to undermine the status of science in their classrooms. Richard Dawkins provides unequivocal evidence that boldly and comprehensively rebuts such nonsense. At the same time, he shares with us his palpable love of the natural world and the essential role that science plays in its interpretation.

Written with elegance, wit, and passion, it is hard-hitting, absorbing, and totally convincing.

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises is a profound and comprehensive examination of economic principles. Mises delves into the intricacies of market phenomena, presenting them as the results of countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals. Each person strives to attain various wants and ends while avoiding undesired consequences.

Individual Choices: It is the subjective value judgments of individuals that ultimately determine market phenomena such as supply and demand, prices, the pattern of production, and even profits and losses. While governments may attempt to set "prices," it is individuals who, through competitive bidding for money, products, and services, actually determine them.

Economics as a Study of Human Actions: Mises presents economics not merely as a study of material goods, services, and products, but as a study of human actions. He introduces the science of praxeology, a discipline grounded in reason and logic, which acknowledges a regularity in the sequence and interrelationships among market phenomena.

The Impact of Free Market Policies: Mises attributes the tremendous technological progress and increased wealth and general welfare in the last two centuries to liberal government policies based on free-market economic teachings. These policies created an environment of freedom and peace, allowing individuals to pursue their respective goals.

The Futility of Government Regulation: Mises explains the futility and counter-productiveness of government attempts to regulate and control individuals' circumstances. He argues that men are born unequal, and it is precisely their inequality that fosters social cooperation and civilization.

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was a leading figure of the Austrian School of Economics in the twentieth century. His work continues to be a significant reference in the field of economics.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea is a groundbreaking and accessible book by Daniel C. Dennett, a renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist. Dennett focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, demonstrating how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe.

Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions. He challenges the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day, offering a powerful defense of evolutionary thinking.

This work explores every aspect of evolutionary theory, showing why it is fundamental to our existence and affirms our convictions about the meaning of life. Dennett's engaging style makes the complex subject matter accessible and compelling for any thinking person.

Ecce Homo is an extraordinary autobiography penned by the renowned philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in late 1888, just weeks before his final descent into madness. This remarkable work stands as one of the most intriguing and bizarre examples of the genre ever written.

In this compelling narrative, Nietzsche provides a profound exploration of his life, philosophical journey, and intellectual development. He examines the heroes he has identified with, struggled against, and ultimately overcome, including Schopenhauer, Wagner, Socrates, and Christ. Through this examination, Nietzsche predicts the cataclysmic impact of his forthcoming revelation of all values.

Both self-celebrating and self-mocking, penetrating and strange, Ecce Homo offers the final, definitive expression of Nietzsche's main beliefs and serves as his last testament.

This essential reading challenges traditional morality, encourages the establishment of autonomy, and promotes a commitment to creativity.

The Story of Philosophy offers a brilliant and concise account of the lives and ideas of the great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Croce, Russell, Santayana, James, and Dewey.

Few write for the non-specialist as well as Will Durant, and this book is a splendid example of his eminently readable scholarship. Durant’s insight and wit never cease to dazzle. The Story of Philosophy is a key book for any reader who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.

The Ascent of Man is a celebrated work by Jacob Bronowski that traces the development of science as an expression of the unique gifts that make humans preeminent among animals. This book, a companion to the acclaimed BBC series, offers a fresh perspective on both science and civilization.

Bronowski's exciting and richly illustrated investigation takes readers on a journey through Western intellectual history, visiting places like Easter Island, the Alhambra, Newton's library, and the caves of Altamira. Here, he explores the qualities of thought and imagination that have driven humanity to analyze the physical world and its inherent laws and structures.

From the harvest of the seasons to the music of the spheres, and from the majestic clockwork to the ladder of creation, Bronowski weaves a compelling narrative of human invention. This work is a celebration of our ability to understand and control nature, from the flint tool to geometry, agriculture to genetics, and from alchemy to the theory of relativity.

Since its first publication in 1945, Lord Russell's A History of Western Philosophy has been universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject—unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace and wit.

In seventy-six chapters, he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century. Among the philosophers considered are: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the Atomists, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Cynics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Plotinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory the Great, John the Scot, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Utilitarians, Marx, Bergson, James, Dewey, and lastly the philosophers with whom Lord Russell himself is most closely associated—Cantor, Frege, and Whitehead, co-author with Russell of the monumental Principia Mathematica.