Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy is perhaps the most important and influential book on the subject ever written. This volume is the result of an effort to weld into a readable form the bulk of almost forty years' thought, observation and research on the subject of socialism. The problem of democracy forced its way into the place it now occupies in this volume because it proved impossible to state my views on the relation between the...

For the past four decades Frank Kermode, critic and writer, has steadily established himself as one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. Questioning the public's harsh perception of 'the artist', Kermode at the same time gently pokes fun at artists' own, often inflated, self-image. He identifies what has become one of the defining characteristics of the Romantic tradition - the artist in isolation and the emerging power of the imagination....

The Rape of the Lock (1906) is a classic, epic poem by English literary icon Alexander Pope. Known for his caustic wit and satirical outlook as much as he was for his formal expertise, Pope is arguably the most important English poet of the eighteenth century. His work influenced such figures as William Wordsworth, Samuel Johnson, and Jonathan Swift. Drawing on his immense knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin literature, Alexander Pope's The Rape...

"In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas identifies the concern for purity as a key theme at the heart of every society. In lively and lucid prose she explains its relevance for every reader by revealing its wide-ranging impact on our attitudes to society, values, cosmology and knowledge. This book has been hugely influential in many areas of debate - from religion to social theory. But perhaps its most important role is to offer each reader a new explanation...