The first publication of seminal early writing by Louis Althusser. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Louis Althusser enjoyed virtually unrivalled status as the foremost living Marxist philosopher. Today, he is remembered as the scourge and severest critic of “humanist” or Hegelian Marxism, as the proponent of rigorously scientific socialism, and as the theorist who posited a sharp rupture—an epistemological break—between the early and the late Marx. This collection of texts from the period 1945-1953 turns these interpretations of Althusser on their head: we discover that there was a “young Althusser” as well as the “mature Althusser” we are already familiar with. In his fascinating Master’s thesis, “On Content in the Thought of G.W.F. Hegel” (1947), Althusser developed a position which he was later to attack ferociously: namely, that the revolutionary potential of the Hegelian dialectic could be defended against Hegel’s own political conservatism. We see Althusser still wrestling with the spectres of Hegel and of Catholicism in another long text, his letter to Jean Lacroix, and, finally, we see his own “epistemological break” in the piece “On Marxism” from 1953. Other texts included are his critique of Alexander KojÅve (whose interpretation Francis Fukoyama has recently revived) and his attack on the French Church’s teachings on women, sex and the family. Widely recognized as an intellectual giant of the late twentieth century, Althusser has left a towering legacy. This collection not only gives a unique insight into the formation of such a personality, but will also restore the “unknown Althusser” to the centre of the history of Marxism and of philosophy since the Second World War.

"The people want - " So began the slogan chanted by millions of protesters across the Arab world in 2011, as their long-suppressed craving for democracy revealed itself. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by the protestors' demands. In this landmark work, noted Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar draws up a balance sheet of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, and analyses the specific socio-economic features that hinder the region's development. Achcar also sheds light on the nature and role of the movements that use Islam as a political banner and the oil monarchies that sponsor them. With incisive and invaluable insight, Achcar outlines the requirements for a lasting solution to the social crisis and the contours of a progressive political alternative. What we have witnessed to date is only the beginning of a revolutionary process that is likely to extend for many more years to come.

Presents previously untranslated texts by the influential philosopher and French Communist Party intellectual, including his critique of Lâevi-Strauss's structuralism, his theory of discourse and its relationship to psychoanalysis, writings on the tasks of Marxist philosophy, and the famous 'humanist controversy.'

Presents previously untranslated texts by the influential philosopher and French Communist Party intellectual, including his critique of Lâevi-Strauss's structuralism, his theory of discourse and its relationship to psychoanalysis, writings on the tasks of Marxist philosophy, and the famous 'humanist controversy.'

Product Description: The Roman poet Ovid is enjoying a renaissance. Though relegated to the margins in the Romantic period, since the mid-1980s he has become popular again, not only with classicists and other lovers of ancient poetry, but also with poets and prose writers...read more

Courtine-Denamy (author of Hannah Arendt ) follows her subjects three women who were philosophers of Jewish descent from 1933 to 1943, exploring how they all attempted to address the issues confronting them. Condemned to exile, they sought not only to understand the horrible reality of the Nazi era, but to make peace with it. Stein (who died in Auschwitz in 1942) and Weil encouraged a stoic acceptance of necessity, while Arendt argued for the capacity for renewal and the need to fight against the banality of evil. Originally published in French in 1997. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) (view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: Sigmund Freud's writings bristle with citations from Goethe's masterpiece, Faust. Sabine Prokhoris maintains that Faust profoundly influenced Freud's psychoanalytic theory, particularly his conception of a cure. Its impact, she says, might be described as "analytic" in nature--a product of transference, the foundation of the psychoanalytic process...read more

Product Description: Examining ideas about masturbation, female sexuality, the family, and post-Calvinist religion that shaped the readership of popular woman's fiction, To Kiss the Chastening Rod shows that passionlessness was the privileged theme of a pervasive discourse which sought to exert social control through the rigorous repression, minute supervision, and covert cultivation of sexuality...read more