Books in the Routledge Classics series

Mary Midgley argues in her powerful new book that far from being the opposite of science, myth is a central part of it. A tour de force of clear thinking on why we are more than the sum of our molecules, The Myths We Live By is essential reading.

As author himself points out in his introduction to this seminal childcare book, to be a successful parent means a lot of very hard work. Controversial yet powerfully influential to this day, this classic collection of his lectures offers important guidelines for child rearing based on the crucial role of early relationships.

A wonderful collection of all 210 tales and popular legends collected by the Grimm brothers over a century ago.

Now available for the first time in paperback, this collection of essays display all of Russell's clarity, incisiveness and brilliance of exposition, particularly on matters of ethics and the nature of truth.

In addresses written for a wide general audience, one of the twentieth century's most prominent thinkers, Claude Levi-Strauss, here offers the insights of a lifetime on the crucial questions of human existence.

In this classic work, the author introduced the then revolutionary idea that indigenous practices are indeed rational, when viewed in terms of religious beliefs.

Offering the reader the opportunity to study the poems in their original contexts as they appeared to Coleridge's and Wordsworth's contemporaries, this edition includes some of their most famous poems, including Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancyent Marinere."

Offers unique and penetrating insights into the lives and opinions of some of the most significant players in the cultural life of the twentieth century.

Midgley offers us an optimistic and holistic view of what it means to be human, acknowledging the complex interconnections of emotion and intellect, while presenting us with the freedom to be ourselves.

True classics of Western literature, these stories have delighted young and old for generations. This unique collection features more than 80 of Andersen's best loved tales and many original illustrations by A.W. Bayes.

When he was 26, the great psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm abandoned Judaism, though he himself was descended from a long line of rabbis and the product of a devout Jewish upbringing. This title contains essays that show a man who would eventually establish himself as a major thinker, producing some of that era's astute political works.

Stokes gave us art criticism as poetry, and in Michelangelo he produced a highly personal and sensitive portrait of a man and his work.

Ranging from the days of Ancient Egypt, through the Reformation to the time of Napoleon, this work presents a history of western civilisation. It was written during the time when the European empires spanned the globe, the modern age was being forged in the nationalist revolutions of 1848, and the western civilisation was in its pomp.

A work of aesthetics. This book focuses on the quality which is distinguished as 'the sublime' - an all-consuming force beyond beauty that compelled terror as much as rapture in all who beheld it.

First published in 1902, this centenary edition, includes a new preface, introductions on the book's history, philosophical influence and modern relevance, and new indexing to commemorate the 100th anniversary of this landmark text.

Between 1931 and 1935, Bertrand Russell contributed some 156 essays to the literary pages of the American newspaper "New York American". This title presents a collection of essays that brings together the very best of Russell's many contributions to the "New York American".

This is Bertrand Russell's classic attempt to show by means of examples, the nature, capacity and limitations of the logico-analytical method in philosophy.

Ethics are necessary because of the conflict between intelligence and impulse - if one were without the other, there would be no place for ethics. This title offers an account of the author's political position and an absorbing exploration of the ways individuals become socially purposeful.

Elucidates a problem integral to the history of Western philosophical thought - the relationship of the mind and body. This work develops a theory of the human mind and consciousness based on the advances in the field that came to be known as cognitive science.

A novel that depicts the foibles of the French aristocracy on the eve of the French Revolution.

Descartes has often been called the 'father of modern philosophy'. His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time, are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of philosophy. This is a classic and challenging introduction to Descartes by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers. Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes' Meditations are not merely a description but the very enactment of philosophical thought and discovery. Williams covers all of the key areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and philosophy generally.With a new foreword by John Cottingham.

Raymond Aron's classic two-volume study of the sociological tradition is arguably the definitive work of its kind. More than a work of reconstruction, Aron's study is, at its deepest level, an engagement with the question of modernity: What constitutes the essence of the modern order that, having emerged in the eighteenth century, still shapes our experience? With scrupulous fairness, Aron examines the thought and arguments of the major social thinkers in this two volume set.

This is the second of Raymond Aron's classic two-volume survey of the sociological tradition - arguably the definitive work of its kind. Aron explores the work of three figures who profoundly shaped sociology as it entered the twentieth century: Emile Durkheim, who continued Auguste Comte's quest for a science of society and a scientific validation of morality; Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian "neo-Machiavellian" who emphasized the oligarchic or elitist character of all societies; and the German sociologist Max Weber, who reflected critically on the prospects for human freedom in an age marked by bureaucratization and rationalization. Aron presents rich portraits of these three thinkers, drawing out the enduring insights that remain in their work. This Routledge Classics edition includes an introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian C. Anderson.

In the first edition of this text Durkheim outlined the core of his theory of morality and social rights which was to dominate his work until his untimely death in 1917. This second edition contains his theory of the state as a moral institution.