In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed.

Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking...

A definitive account of how language works, how we learn it and how it evolves, from an award-winning cognitive scientist and public intellectual. New edition, including an afterword on the book's origins and influence, and re-jacketed as part of a backlist redesign.

Slavoj ¿i¿ek is a Hegelian philosopher, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and political activist. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Eminent Scholar at Kyung-Hee University, Seoul. His previous books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, Trouble in Paradise and, most recently, The Courage of Hopelessness.

Sets six of the finest minds in the history of philosophy to work on the problems of everyday life. Here then are Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on some of the things that bother us all: lack of money, the pain of love, inadequacy, anxiety; the fear of failure and the pressure to conform.

Provides the theoretical basis of political systems in Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe, affecting the lives of millions. This book continues to influence and provoke debate on capitalism and class.