A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Public Books Best Book of the Year "An opportunity for readers to see Piketty bring his larger argument about the origins of inequality and his program for fighting it into high relief." -Nicholas Lemann, New York Times The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding. A perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books. It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality. Piketty guides us with elegance and concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It's a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship. Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people. We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.

From Amazon to Tinder, from Google to Deliveroo, there is no facet of human life which the digital revolution has not streamlined and dematerialised. Its objective was to reduce the cost of physical interactions by forgoing face-to-face interactions, a direct result of the free-market shock of the 1980s, which sought to seamlessly expand the marketplace in every possible dimension. Today, we can be algorithmically entertained, educated, cared for and courted in a way which was impossible in the old industrial society, where institutions structured the social world. Today, these institutions have been replaced by monetised virtual contact.  As with the industrial revolution of the past, the digital revolution is creating a new economy and a new sensibility, bringing about a radical revaluation of society and its representations.  While obsessed with the search for an efficient management of human relations, the new digital capitalism gives rise to an irrational and impulsive Homo numericus prone to an array of addictive behaviours.  Far from producing a new agora, social media produce a radicalization of public debate in which hate-filled speech directed against adversaries becomes the norm.  The good news is that these outcomes are not inevitable. Technologies have not taken control of our lives. The digital revolution also offers an alternative path: one that leads to a world in which every word deserves to be listened to, without a transcendent truth hanging over it.  Are we able to seize the new opportunities opened up by the digital revolution without succumbing to its dark side?

A moving and intimate account of survival, resilience, and reconstruction. Paris. January 7, 2015, two terrorists attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Philippe Lancon, seriously wounded, was among the survivors. This intense life experience upends his relationship to the world, to writing, to reading, to love and to friendship. It took him a year before he could return to writing, a year of frequent reconstructive surgeries, to work through his experiences and their aftermath. As he attempts to reconstruct his life on the page, Lancon rereads Proust, Thomas Mann, Kafka, and others in search of guidance and healing. Disturbance is not an essay on terrorism nor is it a witness's account of Charlie Hebdo, and it's certainly not a "feel good book." The attack and what followed make up a small portion of Lancon's narrative, which instead seeks to provide the most honest and intimate reproduction possible of the interior experience of a man who was a victim, who suffered a "war wound" in a country "at peace." Disturbance is a book about transformation, about one man's shifting relationship to time, to truth, and to his own body.

In this moving and engaging book by one of France’s few female rabbis and leader of the country’s Liberal Jewish Movement, Delphine Horvilleur recounts eleven stories of loss, mourning, and consolation, collected during years spent caring for the dying and their loved ones. From Charlie Hebdo columnist Elsa Cayat, to Simone Veil and Marceline Loridan, “the girls of Birkenau�; from Yitzhak Rabin, to Myriam, a New Yorker obsessed with planning her own funeral, to the author friend’s Ariane and her struggle with terminal illness, Horvilleur writes about death with intelligence, humour, and compassion. Rejecting the contemporary tendency to banish death from our thoughts, she encourages us to embrace its presence as a fundamental part of life.  Drawing from the Jewish tradition, Living with Our Dead is a profoundly humanist, universal, and hopeful book that celebrates life, love, memory and the power of storytelling to inspire and sustain us.

A COMPELLING AND ADDICTIVE PAGETURNER TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THIS SUMMER "He waits joylessly, patiently, and lets himself go. The stone house may end up being his grave. Who's doing what, who's chasing who? Who is the mouse, and who's the cat?" It's the middle of a long hot summer on the French Mediterranean shore and the town is full of tourists. Two tired cops who are being slowly devoured by dull routine and family worries, deal with the day's misdemeanours and petty complaints at the Perpignan police headquarters without a trace of enthusiasm. Out of the blue, a young Dutch woman is brutally murdered on the beach, and another disappears without a trace in the alleys of the city. A serial killer obsessed with Dutch women? The media goes wild. Gilles Sebag finds himself thrust into the middle of a diabolical game. If he intends to salvage something anything he will have to put aside his personal worries, forget his suspicions of his wife's unfaithfulness, ignore his heart murmur, get over his existential angst. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING: "Gilles Sebag is a superb detective. The world of crime is balanced with family life." - Lanna on Amazon "Subtle yet effective in building suspense." - Deb on Goodreads "If you're looking for a good read - whether on holiday or not - you can't do much better than this." - David on Amazon

The impact of the digital world and its algorithms on human beings and society We read all sorts of things about AI, as the promise of a future happiness or as a threat capable of putting an end to humanity. While we cannot be "for" or "against" AI - it's already here, and not likely to disappear any time soon - the question we face is how to exist as human beings - individually, socially, collectively - in a world governed by algorithms. Since the dawn of humanity, technological objects have intersected with the human mind: it is we who have shaped them; but as we use them, they in turn shape our brain. With the development of new technologies, this hybridization is becoming more and more apparent, and machines now threaten to colonize us, if we use them badly. AI allows us to make many kinds of work easier, but these benefits often come at the cost of reducing a person to a set of micro-data, far removed from the human characteristics that define him. Worse yet: the whole economy is now subject to the "decisions" suggested by machines. We have entered an era of algorithmic governmentality, in which leaders have deliberately delegated their decision-making to AI. How, then, can we still talk about democracy? And consequently, how can we organize collective action, confronted by a power that is based on the supposed infallibility of machines? Benasayag gives his considered answers in this short but illuminating book, a hybrid of essay and interview.

An Australian Book Review Best Book of the Year One of France's most famous historians compares two exemplars of political and military leadership to make the unfashionable case that individuals, for better and worse, matter in history. Historians have taught us that the past is not just a tale of heroes and wars. The anonymous millions matter and are active agents of change. But in democratizing history, we have lost track of the outsized role that individual will and charisma can play in shaping the world, especially in moments of extreme tumult. Patrice Gueniffey provides a compelling reminder in this powerful dual biography of two transformative leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles de Gaulle. Both became national figures at times of crisis and war. They were hailed as saviors and were eager to embrace the label. They were also animated by quests for personal and national greatness, by the desire to raise France above itself and lead it on a mission to enlighten the world. Both united an embattled nation, returned it to dignity, and left a permanent political legacy-in Napoleon's case, a form of administration and a body of civil law; in de Gaulle's case, new political institutions. Gueniffey compares Napoleon's and de Gaulle's journeys to power; their methods; their ideas and writings, notably about war; and their postmortem reputations. He also contrasts their weaknesses: Napoleon's limitless ambitions and appetite for war and de Gaulle's capacity for cruelty, manifested most clearly in Algeria. They were men of genuine talent and achievement, with flaws almost as pronounced as their strengths. As many nations, not least France, struggle to find their soul in a rapidly changing world, Gueniffey shows us what a difference an extraordinary leader can make.

Howard S. Becker is a name to conjure with on two continents in the United States and in France. He has enjoyed renown in France for his work in sociology, which in the United States goes back more than fifty years to pathbreaking studies of deviance, professions, sociology of the arts, and a steady stream of books and articles on method. Becker, who lives part of the year in Paris, is by now part of the French intellectual scene, a street-smart jazz pianist and sociologist who offers an answer to the stifling structuralism of Pierre Bourdieu. French fame has brought French analysis, including The Sociology of Howard S. Becker, written by Alain Pessin and translated into English by Steven Rendall. The book is an exploration of Becker's major works as expressions of the freedom of possibility within a world of collaborators. Pessin reads Becker's work as descriptions and ideas that show how society can embody the possibilities of change, of doing things differently, of taking advantage of opportunities for free action. The book is itself a kind of collaboration Pessin and Becker in dialogue. The Sociology of Howard S. Becker is a meeting of two cultures via two great sociological minds in conversation.

From the Nobel Prize-winning economist, a bold new agenda for the role of economics in society When Jean Tirole won the Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by strangers and asked to comment on current events far from his own research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect more deeply on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics can help us improve the shared lot of societies and humanity as a whole. To show how, Tirole shares his insights on a broad range of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Compelling and accessible, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society.

During the spring of 1933, Stalin's police rounded up nearly one hundred thousand people as part of the Soviet regime's "cleansing" of Moscow and Leningrad and deported them to Siberia. Many of the victims were sent to labor camps, but ten thousand of them were dumped in a remote wasteland and left to fend for themselves. "Cannibal Island" reveals the shocking, grisly truth about their fate.

These people were abandoned on the island of Nazino without food or shelter. Left there to starve and to die, they eventually began to eat each other. Nicolas Werth, a French historian of the Soviet era, reconstructs their gruesome final days using rare archival material from deep inside the Stalinist vaults. Werth skillfully weaves this episode into a broader story about the Soviet frenzy in the 1930s to purge society of all those deemed to be unfit. For Stalin, these undesirables included criminals, opponents of forced collectivization, vagabonds, gypsies, even entire groups in Soviet society such as the "kulaks" and their families. Werth sets his story within the broader social and political context of the period, giving us for the first time a full picture of how Stalin's system of "special villages" worked, how hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were moved about the country in wholesale mass transportations, and how this savage bureaucratic machinery functioned on the local, regional, and state levels.

"Cannibal Island" challenges us to confront unpleasant facts not only about Stalin's punitive social controls and his failed Soviet utopia, but about every generation's capacity for brutality--including our own.

Patrice Gueniffey is the leading French historian of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic age. This book, hailed as a masterwork on its publication in France, takes up the epic narrative at the heart of this turbulent period: the life of Napoleon himself, the man who-in Madame de Stael's words-made the rest of "the human race anonymous." Gueniffey follows Bonaparte from his obscure boyhood in Corsica, to his meteoric rise during the Italian and Egyptian campaigns of the Revolutionary wars, to his proclamation as Consul for Life in 1802. Bonaparte is the story of how Napoleon became Napoleon. A future volume will trace his career as emperor. Most books approach Napoleon from an angle-the Machiavellian politician, the military genius, the life without the times, the times without the life. Gueniffey paints a full, nuanced portrait. We meet both the romantic cadet and the young general burning with ambition-one minute helplessly intoxicated with Josephine, the next minute dominating men twice his age, and always at war with his own family. Gueniffey recreates the violent upheavals and global rivalries that set the stage for Napoleon's battles and for his crucial role as state builder. His successes ushered in a new age whose legacy is felt around the world today. Averse as we are now to martial glory, Napoleon might seem to be a hero from a bygone time. But as Gueniffey says, his life still speaks to us, the ultimate incarnation of the distinctively modern dream to will our own destiny.

In this incisive book, Michel de Certeau considers the uses to which social representation and modes of social behavior are put by individuals and groups, describing the tactics available to the common man for reclaiming his own autonomy from the all-pervasive forces of commerce, politics, and culture. In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.

From Nobel Prize-winning economist Jean Tirole, a bold new agenda for the role of economics in society When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a "dismal science," is a positive force for the common good. Economists are rewarded for writing technical papers in scholarly journals, not joining in public debates. But Tirole says we urgently need economists to engage with the many challenges facing society, helping to identify our key objectives and the tools needed to meet them. To show how economics can help us realize the common good, Tirole shares his insights on a broad array of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the Euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Providing a rich account of how economics can benefit everyone, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society.

The story of German philosophy from the Middle Ages to today In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, Vittorio Hoesle traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science, from the Middle Ages to today. A Short History of German Philosophy addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther's Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of German philosophy from Leibniz to Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities; and the German Idealists. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy; the foundation of the historical sciences; Husserl's phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers after 1945. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the recent past. A philosophical history remarkable for its scope, brevity, and lucidity, this is an invaluable book for students of philosophy and anyone interested in German intellectual and cultural history.

Fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism--the West has no shortage of reasons for guilt. And, indeed, since the Holocaust and the end of World War II, Europeans in particular have been consumed by remorse. But Pascal Bruckner argues that guilt has now gone too far. It has become a pathology, and even an obstacle to fighting today's atrocities. Bruckner, one of France's leading writers and public intellectuals, argues that obsessive guilt has obscured important realities. The West has no monopoly on evil, and has destroyed monsters as well as created them--leading in the abolition of slavery, renouncing colonialism, building peaceful and prosperous communities, and establishing rules and institutions that are models for the world. The West should be proud--and ready to defend itself and its values. In this, Europeans should learn from Americans, who still have sufficient self-esteem to act decisively in a world of chaos and violence. Lamenting the vice of anti-Americanism that grips so many European intellectuals, Bruckner urges a renewed transatlantic alliance, and advises Americans not to let recent foreign-policy misadventures sap their own confidence. This is a searing, provocative, and psychologically penetrating account of the crude thought and bad politics that arise from excessive bad conscience.

A revolutionary account of the ancient Greek economy This comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy revolutionizes our understanding of the subject and its possibilities. Alain Bresson is one of the world's leading authorities in the field, and he is helping to redefine it. Here he combines a thorough knowledge of ancient sources with innovative new approaches grounded in recent economic historiography to provide a detailed picture of the Greek economy between the last century of the Archaic Age and the closing of the Hellenistic period. Focusing on the city-state, which he sees as the most important economic institution in the Greek world, Bresson addresses all of the city-states rather than only Athens. An expanded and updated English edition of an acclaimed work originally published in French, the book offers a groundbreaking new theoretical framework for studying the economy of ancient Greece; presents a masterful survey and analysis of the most important economic institutions, resources, and other factors; and addresses some major historiographical debates. Among the many topics covered are climate, demography, transportation, agricultural production, market institutions, money and credit, taxes, exchange, long-distance trade, and economic growth. The result is an unparalleled demonstration that, unlike just a generation ago, it is possible today to study the ancient Greek economy as an economy and not merely as a secondary aspect of social or political history. This is essential reading for students, historians of antiquity, and economic historians of all periods.

The director of twenty-five films, including My Night at Maud's (1969), which was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, and the editor in chief of Cahiers du cinema from 1957 to 1963, Eric Rohmer set the terms by which people watched, made, and thought about cinema for decades. Such brilliance does not develop in a vacuum, and Rohmer cultivated a fascinating network of friends, colleagues, and industry contacts that kept his outlook sharp and propelled his work forward. Despite his privacy, he cared deeply about politics, religion, culture, and fostering a public appreciation of the medium he loved. This exhaustive biography uses personal archives and interviews to enrich our knowledge of Rohmer's public achievements and lesser known interests and relations. The filmmaker kept in close communication with his contemporaries and competitors: Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette. He held a paradoxical fascination with royalist politics, the fate of the environment, Catholicism, classical music, and the French nightclub scene, and his films were regularly featured at New York and Los Angeles film festivals. Despite an austere approach to life, Rohmer had a voracious appetite for art, culture, and intellectual debate captured vividly in this definitive volume.

How happiness became mandatory-and why we should reject the demand to "be happy" Happiness today is not just a possibility or an option but a requirement and a duty. To fail to be happy is to fail utterly. Happiness has become a religion-one whose smiley-faced god looks down in rebuke upon everyone who hasn't yet attained the blessed state of perpetual euphoria. How has a liberating principle of the Enlightenment-the right to pursue happiness-become the unavoidable and burdensome responsibility to be happy? How did we become unhappy about not being happy-and what might we do to escape this predicament? In Perpetual Euphoria, Pascal Bruckner takes up these questions with all his unconventional wit, force, and brilliance, arguing that we might be happier if we simply abandoned our mad pursuit of happiness. Gripped by the twin illusions that we are responsible for being happy or unhappy and that happiness can be produced by effort, many of us are now martyring ourselves-sacrificing our time, fortunes, health, and peace of mind-in the hope of entering an earthly paradise. Much better, Bruckner argues, would be to accept that happiness is an unbidden and fragile gift that arrives only by grace and luck. A stimulating and entertaining meditation on the unhappiness at the heart of the modern cult of happiness, Perpetual Euphoria is a book for everyone who has ever bristled at the command to "be happy."

A definitive biography of the great French essayist and thinker One of the most important writers and thinkers of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) helped invent a literary genre that seemed more modern than anything that had come before. But did he do it, as he suggests in his Essays, by retreating to his chateau and stoically detaching himself from his violent times? Philippe Desan overturns this long standing myth by showing that Montaigne was constantly connected to and concerned with realizing his political ambitions-and that the literary and philosophical character of the Essays largely depends on them. Desan shows how Montaigne conceived of each edition of the Essays as an indispensable prerequisite to the next stage of his public career. It was only after his political failure that Montaigne took refuge in literature, and even then it was his political experience that enabled him to find the right tone for his genre. The most comprehensive and authoritative biography of Montaigne yet written, this sweeping narrative offers a fascinating new picture of his life and work.

Shipwreck with Spectator traces the evolution of the complex of metaphors related to the sea, to shipwreck, and to the role of the spectator in human culture from ancient Greece to modern times. This elegant essay exemplifies Blumenberg's ideas about the ability of the historical study of metaphor to illuminate essential aspects of being human. Originally published in the same year as his monumental Work on Myth, Shipwreck with Spectator traces the evolution of the complex of metaphors related to the sea, to shipwreck, and to the role of the spectator in human culture from ancient Greece to modern times. The sea is one of humanity's oldest metaphors for life, and a sea journey, Blumenberg observes, has often stood for our journey through life. We all know the role that shipwrecks can play in this journey, and at some level we have all played witness to others' wrecks, standing in safety and knowing that there is nothing we can do to help, yet fixed comfortably or uncomfortably in our ambiguous role as spectator. Through Blumenberg's seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of letters, from ancient texts through nineteenth-century reminiscences and modern speeches, we see layer upon layer revealed in the meaning humans have given to these metaphors; and in this way we begin to understand what metaphors can do that more straightforward modes of expression cannot. This edition of Shipwreck with Spectator also includes "Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality," an essay that recounts the evolution of Blumenberg's ideas about metaphorology in the years following his early manifesto "Paradigms for a Metaphorology."

This is a sweeping and provocative work of aesthetic theory: a trenchant critique of the philosophy of art as it developed from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, combined with a carefully reasoned plea for a new and more flexible approach to art.

Jean-Marie Schaeffer, one of France's leading aestheticians, explores the writings of Kant, Schlegel, Novalis, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger to show that these diverse thinkers shared a common approach to art, which he calls the "speculative theory." According to this theory, art offers a special kind of intuitive, quasi-mystical knowledge, radically different from the rational knowledge acquired by science. This view encouraged theorists to consider artistic geniuses the high-priests of humanity, creators of works that reveal the invisible essence of the world. Philosophers came to regard inexpressibility as the aim of art, refused to consider second-tier creations genuine art, and helped to create conditions in which the genius was expected to shock, puzzle, and mystify the public. Schaeffer shows that this speculative theory helped give birth to romanticism, modernism, and the avant-garde, and paved the way for an unfortunate divorce between art and enjoyment, between "high art" and popular art, and between artists and their public.

Rejecting the speculative approach, Schaeffer concludes by defending a more tolerant theory of art that gives pleasure its due, includes popular art, tolerates less successful works, and accounts for personal tastes.

" A] remarkable work.... Schaeffer's] writing is governed by ... the ideals of clarity and consequence, the ideas of logic, truth, and evidence.... Schaeffer is so precise and unrelenting a philosophical critic that one wonders how some of the philosophies he anatomizes here can possibly survive the operation."--From the foreword by Arthur C. Danto

One of the world's most important political philosophers, Jon Elster is a leading thinker on reason and rationality and their roles in politics and public life. In this short book, he crystallizes and advances his work, bridging the gap between philosophers who use the idea of reason to assess human behavior from a normative point of view and social scientists who use the idea of rationality to explain behavior. In place of these approaches, Elster proposes a unified conceptual framework for the study of behavior.

Drawing on classical moralists as well as modern scholarship, and using a wealth of historical and contemporary illustrations, "Reason and Rationality" marks a new development in Elster's thinking while at the same time providing a brief, elegant, and accessible introduction to his work.

Howard S. Becker is a name to conjure with on two continents in the United States and in France. He has enjoyed renown in France for his work in sociology, which in the United States goes back more than fifty years to pathbreaking studies of deviance, professions, sociology of the arts, and a steady stream of books and articles on method. Becker, who lives part of the year in Paris, is by now part of the French intellectual scene, a street-smart jazz pianist and sociologist who offers an answer to the stifling structuralism of Pierre Bourdieu. French fame has brought French analysis, including The Sociology of Howard S. Becker, written by Alain Pessin and translated into English by Steven Rendall. The book is an exploration of Becker's major works as expressions of the freedom of possibility within a world of collaborators. Pessin reads Becker's work as descriptions and ideas that show how society can embody the possibilities of change, of doing things differently, of taking advantage of opportunities for free action. The book is itself a kind of collaboration Pessin and Becker in dialogue. The Sociology of Howard S. Becker is a meeting of two cultures via two great sociological minds in conversation.

Noam is a young man when the Flood wreaks havoc on the world, destroying the peaceful lakeside village he called home, and turning his whole life upside down. Destined to live forever as an immortal, Noam travels through the centuries in search of the meaning of life, and the events which shaped who we have become today. Paradises Lost is the first installment of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s monumental project of recounting the history of humanity, the fruits of more than thirty years of research. The first in a series, and in the form of a stylistic novel much like Yuval Noah Harari crossed with Alexandre Dumas. Schmitt combines his scientific, religious and philosophical research to propel readers from one world to another, and from pre-history to today.