In State, Power, Socialism, the leading theorist of the state andEuropean communism advances a vigorous critique of contemporaryMarxist theories of the state. Arguing against a general theory of thestate, Poulantzas identifies forms of class power crucial to socialist
strategy that go beyond the state apparatus."

"Tactics and Ethics" collects Georg Lukacs' articles from the most politically active time of his life, a period encompassing his stint as deputy commissar of education in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Including his famed essay on parliamentarianism - which earned Lukacs the respectful yet severe criticism of Lenin - this book is a treasure chest of valuable insights from one of history's great political philosophers.

In this vehement defence of democracy, Jacques Ranciere explodes the complacency of Western politicians who pride themselves as the defenders of political freedom. As America and its allies use their military might in the misguided attempt to export a desiccated version democracy, and reactionary strands in mainstream political opinion abandon civil liberties, Ranciere argues that true democracy--government by all--is held in profound contempt by the new ruling class. In a compelling and timely analysis, Hatred of Democracy rethinks the subversive power of the democratic ideal.

Louis Althusser is remembered today as the scourge of humanist Marxism, but that was his later incarnation, an identity formed by years grappling with the intellectual inheritance of Hegel and Catholicism. "The Spectre of Hegel "collects the writings of the young Althusser, before his final epistemological break with the philosopher s work in 1953. Including his famed essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, "The Spectre of Hegel "gives a unique insight into Althusser s engagement with a philosophy he would later renounce."

The Melancholy Science is Gillian Rose's investigation into Theodor Adorno's work and legacy. Rose uncovers the unity discernable among the many fragments of Adorno's oeuvre, and argues that his influence has been to turn Marxism into a search for style.

The attempts of Adorno, Lukacs and Benjamin to develop a Marxist theory of culture centred on the concept of reification are contrasted, and the ways in which the concept of reification has come to be misused are exposed. Adorno's continuation for his own time of the Marxist critique of philosophy is traced through his writings on...

'Watching the president's Christmas message produces this necropolar, white-mass sensation. Seeing the video broadcast of the Christmas service in the cathedral itself, with these pathetic screens and the young worshippers slumped around them here and there, you tell yourself that God and religion deserved better. Deserved to die, yes, but not this. However, watching the presidential figure and his sonorous inanity, you tell yourself that here at least you got what you deserved. Chirac is useless - that goes without saying - but so are we all ... Uselessness of this kind has no origin: it...

The Ego and His Own, the seminal defence of individualism, coloured the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Ernst, Henrik Ibsen and Victor Serge, among many others, some of whom would vigorously deny any such influence in later years. Less reticent was Marcel Duchamp, who described Max Stirner as the philosopher most important to his work.

Challenging the religious, philosophical and political constraints on personal freedom, Stirner criticizes all doctrines and beliefs that place the interests of God, the state, humanity or society over those of the individual. Anticipating the...

A groundbreaking contribution to debates on women's oppression and consciousness, and the connections between socialism and feminism, this foundational text shows how the roles women adopt within the capitalist economy have shaped ideas about family and sexuality. Examining feminist consciousness from various vantage points - social, sexual, cultural and economic - Sheila Rowbotham identifies the conditions under which it developed, and how the formation of a new "way of seeing" for women can lead to collective solidarity.

Is heterosexual sex inherently damaging to women? This is the central question of Straight Sex, Lynne Segal's account of twentyfive years of feminist thinking on sexuality. Covering the thought of sixties-era sexual liberationists, alongside the ensuing passionate debates over sex and love within feminist and lesbian communities, Segal covers certain shifts toward greater sexual conservatism in the eighties. Straight Sex examines an array of issues, including sex as a subversive activity, the "liberated orgasm," sex advice literature, gender uncertainties, queer politics,...

Despite much talk of its decline, the nuclear family persists as a structure central to contemporary society, a fact to be lamented, according to the ideas of Michele Barrett and Mary McIntosh. The Anti-social Family dissects the network of household, kinship and sexual relations that constitute the family form in advanced capitalist societies to show how they reinforce conditions of inequality. This classic work explores the personal and social needs that the family promises to meet but more often denies, and proposes moral and political practices for more egalitarian caring...