The new translation of the classic work by the author of Wretched of the Earth: "A strange, haunting mélange of analysis [and] revolutionary manifesto" ( Newsweek).Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. This new translation by Richard Philcox makes Fanon's masterwork accessible to a new generatio...

An indispensable collection that re-examines what it means to belong in the world."Where are you from?" The word cosmopolitan was first used as a way of evading exactly this question, when Diogenes the Cynic declared himself a "kosmo-polites," or citizen of the world. Cosmopolitanism displays two impulses—on the one hand, a detachment from one's place of origin, while on the other, an assertion of membership in some larger, more compelling collective.Cosmopo...

A Washington Post Notable Book of the YearAs seen on the Netflix series ExplainedFrom the best-selling author of Cosmopolitanism comes this revealing exploration of how the collective identities that shape our polarized world are riddled with contradiction.Who do you think you are? That’s a question bound up in another: What do you think you are? Gender. Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such aff...

“A brilliant and humane philosophy for our confused age.”—Samantha Power, author of A Problem from HellKwame Anthony Appiah’s landmark new work, featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, challenges the separatist doctrines espoused in books like Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations. Reviving the ancient philosophy of “cosmopolitanism,” a school of thought that dates to the Cynics of the fourth century BC, Appiah traces its influence ...

The beating of Rodney King and the resulting riots in South Central Los Angeles. The violent clash between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights. The boats of Haitian refugees being turned away from the Land of Opportunity. These are among the many racially-charged images that have burst across our television screens in the last year alone, images that show that for all our complacent beliefs in a melting-pot society, race is as much of a problem as ever in America. In this vastly...

Introduction by Kwame Anthony AppiahCommentary by Jean Fagan Yellin and Margaret FullerThis Modern Library edition combines two of the most important African American slave narratives—crucial works that each illuminate and inform the other.Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life;...

"[Appiah's] work reveals the heart and sensitivity of a novelist. . . .Fascinating, erudite and beautifully written."—The New York Times Book ReviewIn this groundbreaking work, Kwame Anthony Appiah, hailed as "one of the most relevant philosophers today" (New York Times Book Review), changes the way we understand human behavior and the way social reform is brought about. In brilliantly arguing that new democratic movements over the last century have not been drive...

Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality: in the past couple of decades, a great deal of attention has been paid to such collective identities. They clamor for recognition and respect, sometimes at the expense of other things we value. But to what extent do "identities" constrain our freedom, our ability to make an individual life, and to what extent do they enable our individuality? In this beautifully written work, renowned philosopher and African Studies scholar Kwame A...

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah explores how early social scientists developed our modern understandings of society through their theories of religionThe foundations of modern social science were built on the study of religion, the acclaimed thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah argues. Delving into the intellectual currents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he investigates how formative thinkers—notably Edward Burnett Tylor, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, an...

Here is a thorough, vividly written introduction to contemporary philosophy and some of the most crucial questions of human existence: the nature of mind and knowledge, the status of moral claims, the existence of God, the role of science, and the mysteries of language, among them. In Thinking It Through, esteemed philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah shows us what it means to "do" philosophy in our time and why it should matter to anyone who wishes to live a more thoughtful life. Oppo...

In the past few decades, scientists of human nature—including experimental and cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, evolutionary theorists, and behavioral economists—have explored the way we arrive at moral judgments. They have called into question commonplaces about character and offered troubling explanations for various moral intuitions. Research like this may help explain what, in fact, we do and feel. But can it tell us what we ought to do or feel? In Experiments in Ethics

W. E. B. Du Bois never felt so at home as when he was a student at the University of Berlin. But Du Bois was also American to his core, scarred but not crippled by the racial humiliations of his homeland. In Lines of Descent, Kwame Anthony Appiah traces the twin lineages of Du Bois’ American experience and German apprenticeship, showing how they shaped the great African-American scholar’s ideas of race and social identity.At Harvard, Du Bois studied with such luminaries as...