The Politics and Culture of Decline. 'Not With a Bang But a Whimper' is a beautifully-written and thought-provoking collection of pieces on subjects as diverse as the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand controversy, violent crime on Britain's streets, the effects of the welfare state, modern architecture and the respective merits of Shakespeare and Dr Johnson. Theodore Dalrymple uses examples from his long career as a prison doctor, and his travels to every corner of the globe, to illustrate his central view - that Britain is in the throes of a catastrophic cultural, social and political decline.

Western Europe is in a strangely neurotic condition of being smug and terrified at the same time. On the one hand, Europeans believe they have at last created an ideal social and political system in which man can live comfortably. In many ways, things have never been better on the old continent. On the other hand, there is growing anxiety that Europe is quickly falling behind in an aggressive, globalized world. Europe is at the forefront of nothing, its demographics are rapidly transforming in unsettling ways, and the ancient threat of barbarian invasion has resurfaced in a fresh...

A uniquely-sourced account of the life and times of one of the UK's most famous prisons - a fame that flows directly from an account of the execution of Trooper Charles Thomas Wooldridge (CTW) as written by Reading Gaol's best-known prisoner, C.3.3, the pseudonym of Oscar Wilde. Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, his last work for publication in 1898 is known the world over for its insights and telling phrases, such as 'bricks of shame', 'souls in pain' and 'that little tent of blue, that prisoners call the sky'. Possibly the greatest and most influential artistic work in terms of penal reform...

In 'Spoilt Rotten', well-known social commentator Theodore Dalrymple grinds his axe at our child-centric culture where children have become the yardstick of everything we do, safe driving, education, taking of responsibility (none), sentimentality (everywhere).

What is the connection between God and East Sheen? How do you talk your way out of an Albanian jail? Why do dictators love to make comic books? How does a missed penalty-kick lead to a bloody war? Theodore Dalrymple, a psychiatrist who gives expert witness in murder cases, has a passion for sideways thinking. In The Pleasure of Thinking he takes us on a witty and erudite voyage along the hidden pathways that bring ideas together. At once light-hearted and enlightening, it is an amusing flight of the imagination in which we discover the happy accidents that befall those who remain endlessly...

What are the reasons for the decline of our culture? Theodore Dalrymple has spent a lifetime observing it close-up and personal as an inner-city GP and prison psychiatrist. In Nothing But Wickedness he looks at the things that make us behave the way we do, and all the subtle ways in which we delude ourselves and destroy our own culture.

First paperback edition of the acclaimed Hardback.