Polity

16/12/2025

We published 7 brilliant books in the UK this week.

📚'Gender and Technology: An Introduction' by Holly Kruse - A global history of how technology has been and continues to be gendered.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=gender-and-technology-an-introduction--9781509531448
📚'The Civil Sphere: A Concise Introduction' by Peter Kivisto & Giuseppe Sciortino - A short introduction to Jeffrey Alexander’s Civil Sphere theory.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-civil-sphere-a-concise-introduction--9781509560561
📚'Post-Liberalism' by Matt Sleat - The first sustained analysis of post-liberalism, a new and controversial tradition in political theory.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=post-liberalism--9781509562190
📚'An Introduction to Information Studies: Datafying People, Places, and Things' by Alexander Halavais - A field-defining textbook in Information Studies for students across the social sciences.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=an-introduction-to-information-studies-datafying-people-places-and-things--9781509563845
📚'Elect Women for a Change: The Path to Gender Parity in Politics' by Mona Lena Krook - What does political power in the hands of women really look like?
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=elect-women-for-a-change-the-path-to-gender-parity-in-politics--9781509566938
📚'State Composition and Collapse of the Second Reich: The Victory of the Bourgeois Citizen over the Soldier' by Carl Schmitt - Carl Schmitt analyses why Germany lost the First World War and draws the implications for the N**i regime.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=state-composition-and-collapse-of-the-second-reich-the-victory-of-the-bourgeois-citizen-over-the-soldier--9781509566242
📚'The Social Causes of Health and Disease, 4th Edition' by William C. Cockerham - A leading medical sociologist investigates the social factors that determine our health.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-social-causes-of-health-and-disease-4th-edition--9781509567218

08/12/2025

“The accomplished British critic Stuart Jeffries … makes ‘stupid' seem like the perfect way to characterize our era."
Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker reviews Stuart Jeffries' A Short History of Stupidity.

Stupidity is eternal—and more complex than we think.

05/12/2025

We have three new books publishing in the UK today.

📚'Animal Studies and Philosophy' by Rebekah Humphreys - An eye-opening study of how philosophy can inform our understanding of animal studies.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=animal-studies-and-philosophy--9781509551644

📚'The Political Economy of Racism: The Persistence of Anti-Blackness in the United States' by Michelle Holder & Jeannette Wicks-Lim - The first introductory textbook to apply a stratification economics approach to racial economic inequality in the US.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-political-economy-of-racism-the-persistence-of-anti-blackness-in-the-united-states--9781509547081

📚'The Shades of Black Folk: Colorism Past, Present, and Future' by Robert L. Reece - The past, present, and future of an under-examined but all-too-powerful axis of inequality.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-shades-of-black-folk-colorism-past-present-and-future--9781509565825

28/11/2025

We have eight new books out in the UK today!

📚 'A Political Life: 1937 - 1985' by Alain Badiou - The revealing autobiography of a leading philosopher and seminal thinker in radical politics.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-political-life-1937--1985--9781509565665
📚'Things Needed to Get Better: Conversations with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos' by Jürgen Habermas - One of the greatest philosophers of our time reflects on his life and work.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=things-needed-to-get-better-conversations-with-stefan-muumlller-doohm-and-roman-yos--9781509567270
📚'The Curse of Empire: Ukraine, Poland, and the Fatal Paths in Russian History' by Martin Schulze Wessel - A leading historian puts Russia’s war against Ukraine in the context of the history of Russian imperialism spanning three centuries.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-curse-of-empire-ukraine-poland-and-the-fatal-paths-in-russian-history--9781509563999
📚'Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better' by Alan Manning - An authoritative account of pros, cons, and myths of immigration by the former head of the UK’s Migration Advisory Committee.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=why-immigration-policy-is-hard-and-how-to-make-it-better--9781509563654
📚'Geodemography: How Population Shapes the Relations Between States' by Massimo Livi-Bacci - An introduction to how population dynamics influence the relations between societies, states and regions of the world.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=geodemography-how-population-shapes-the-relations-between-states--9781509567867
📚'West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East' by Mohammed Soliman - How a new US-led order across ‘West Asia’ can counter China and Russia.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=west-asia-a-new-american-grand-strategy-in-the-middle-east--9781509568376
📚'The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet' by Bogna Konior - A radical new view of the internet as a cosmic war machine teeming with conflict.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-internet--9781509569250
📚'France, You Love It but Leave It: The Silent Flight of French Muslims' by Olivier Esteves, Alice Picard & Julien Talpin - Why so many French Muslims are fleeing France.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=france-you-love-it-but-leave-it-the-silent-flight-of-french-muslims--9781509570072

21/11/2025

We have five new books publishing in the UK today!

📚'The Rise of Dogwhistle Politics' by Deborah Cameron - What does the rise of dogwhistle politics reveal about our faith in the power of language?
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-rise-of-dogwhistle-politics--9781509569007

📚'A Brief History of the Economy' by Daniel Cohen - A concise history of the economy and of economic thinking by a leading economist.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-brief-history-of-the-economy--9781509568307

📚'The Racialized Brain: The Neurosociology of Race and Racism' by Rengin Firat - Are our brains wired for recism?
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-racialized-brain-the-neurosociology-of-race-and-racism--9781509557943

📚'The Republic of Innovation: A New Political Economy of Freedom' by Andrea Lorenzo Capussela - How true freedom can foster innovation and lead societies to prosperity.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-republic-of-innovation-a-new-political-economy-of-freedom--9781509564828

📚'Child Influencers: How Children Become Entangled with Social Media Fame' by Crystal Abidin - The first comprehensive book that frames the historical and contemporary phenomenon of child influencers.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=child-influencers-how-children-become-entangled-with-social-media-fame--9781509568024

19/11/2025

We are living, it is often said, in a golden age of stupidity, in which boneheaded, mendacious politicians get elected by voters who’ve become too mindless to realize their interests are ill served by narcissists, while vapid social media influencers corrupt their no less witless followers with groundless conspiracy theories and eye-wateringly foolish takedowns of scientific expertise. Our time, one might be forgiven for thinking, is one in which the fool’s gold of stupidity has become a desirable commodity, a must-have, with bumbling celebrities venerated more than those who have more than two brain cells to rub together.

In this book, Stuart Jeffries analyses how we got into this parlous state and wonders if the stupid, like the poor, are always with us, or if, rather, stupidity is like Japanese knotweed, difficult to root out but to be exterminated with extreme prejudice. He considers what some of the greatest of minds – Socrates, Buddha, Voltaire, Arendt, and others – have to tell us about the slippery nature of stupidity.
In

During a narrative that takes us from ancient Greece to artificial intelligence, and accompanied by such heroes of stupidity as Flaubert’s double act Bouvard and Pécuchet, Jeffries casts a sceptical eye on attempts to root out stupidity by such means as IQ tests, eugenics, gene editing, and racist education policies, finding each attempt to be more stupid than the stupidity they were ostensibly devised to eradicate. If today we are living in a fool’s paradise, has our species become too dim to learn anything from its rich history of folly?

A Short History of Stupidity by Stuart Jeffries is now available worldwide.
See more: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-short-history-of-stupidity--9781509563494

18/11/2025

We are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in American history. What are we going to do about it?

Around 100,000 Americans died of a drug overdose last year – nearly double the number who died in Vietnam. More than 1,000,000 have perished since 2000, thanks largely to an explosion of fentanyl and other addictive opioids. But fentanyl, abundant methamphetamine, and other lethal drugs are not the only things that are killing us: our policy is. So far, America has lacked the will to do better. That must change, and this book tells us how.

No one is immune, which is why Kevin Sabet has authored this remarkable book. Sabet, dubbed the “the quarterback of the new anti-drug movement” by Salon, has spent most of his life battling the destructive effects of drugs. In One Nation Under the Influence, he asks hard questions and provides clear answers, taking readers from the streets of San Francisco and New York to the southern border, up to Canada, and across to Europe to show how we can chart a necessary way forward. The solutions are out there, if only we have the will to apply them.

One Nation Under the Influence: America's Drug Habit and How We Can Overcome It by Kevin A. Sabet is out now and available worldwide.

See more: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=one-nation-under-the-influence-americas-drug-habit-and-how-we-can-overcome-it--9781509560707

17/11/2025

“Ghosting” has become an almost inevitable part of modern life – not just on dating sites, but among friends, family and even professional colleagues. But what’s behind this act of digital disappearance, and what does it say about how we relate to each other today?

Listen to Dominic Pettman on KQED

We look at how technology that makes it easier to disappear on people has also made ghosting more socially acceptable, despite its emotional toll.

17/11/2025

“Read him and, whatever you do, don’t weep.”
The Telegraph The Telegraph select 'I Suffer Therefore I am' by Pascal Bruckner as one of the Best Books of 2025.

Our critics review hundreds of books a year. Here are their favourites from 2025, from fiction and crime to memoir and history

14/11/2025

In a humane world, cruelty should not exist, and yet it has been a feature of our societies since time immemorial. From individual acts of cruelty to systematic torture and mass murder, cruelty has been humanity’s constant companion, attesting to a darker side of human nature.

In this wide-ranging cultural history, Wolfgang Müller-Funk examines the ways in which different thinkers and authors – from Herodotus to Nietzsche, from Seneca to Musil and Koestler – have conceptualized and tried to make sense of a phenomenon we would prefer to ignore.

Cruelty: A Cultural History by Wolfgang Müller-Funk. Out today in the UK.

https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=cruelty-a-cultural-history--9781509563951

11/11/2025

Four brilliant new books out now in the UK!

📚'The Philosophy of Love, S*x, and Relationships' by Luke Brunning & Natasha McKeever - A fresh and contemporary philosophical look at love and s*x, which speaks to the lived experiences of students.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-philosophy-of-love-s*x-and-relationships--9781509551491

📚'Superweak: Thinking in the 21st Century' by Laurent de Sutter - A dismantling of our preoccupation with critique and critical thinking.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=superweak-thinking-in-the-21st-century--9781509566464

📚'Inside Digital Advertising: Platforms, Power, and Material Politics' by Donald MacKenzie & Koray Caliskan - A book that lays bare the processes that underpin today’s global digital advertising industry.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=inside-digital-advertising-platforms-power-and-material-politics--9781509568635

📚'The Chauvinist Threat: Russia's War and the West's Response' by Sabine Fischer - Why Russian chauvinism is key to understanding Russia’s war against Ukraine and its threat to liberal democracies.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-chauvinist-threat-russias-war-and-the-wests-response--9781509567713

31/10/2025

Two books out today in the UK!

📚'Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI' by Nick Srnicek - A penetrating analysis of the economic forces shaping the future of AI.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=silicon-empires-the-fight-for-the-future-of-ai--9781509550487

📚'Pornocracy' by Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel - A devastating examination of how society has been mentally colonised by p**n.
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=p**nocracy--9781509565139