Books by J. Roberts

The Aesthetics of Free Speech: Rethinking the Public Sphere is one of the first books to theoretically explore the relationship between free speech and the public sphere.

Suggesting that an expressive ideology has arisen within the workplace public sphere around the theme of 'competence', this book explores the hegemony of global finance and the fetishism of the new economy, exposing the dilemmas of the competence agenda, and illustrating how competence is played out in the workplace public sphere.

The authors examine the relationship between social science and philosophy and ask what sort of work social science and an accompanying philosophy should do. They reintroduce the question of ontology, through the work of Roy Bhaskar. The book argues against philosophising and is committed to a philosophical approach grounded in the social sciences.

Comprehensive in its scope and brilliantly readable, this is a superb follow-up to the author's bestselling Penguin History of the World. Beginning with prehistory and the early civilizations of the Aegean, The Penguin History of Europe traces the development of European identity in its many guises, through the age of Christendom, the Middle Ages, early Modern history and the old European order.

The Aesthetics of Free Speech: Rethinking the Public Sphere is one of the first books to theoretically explore the relationship between free speech and the public sphere.