Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings - Softcover

Gray, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141981113 ISBN 13: 9780141981116

Publisher: Penguin, 2016

Synopsis

'The most prescient of British public intellectuals' Pankaj Mishra, Financial Times

Updated with a new foreword and two new chapters of John Gray's writing.

Why is progress a pernicious myth? Why do beliefs that humanity can be improved end in farce or horror? Is atheism a hangover from Christian faith? John Gray, one of the most iconoclastic thinkers of our time, smashes through civilization's long cherished beliefs, overturning our view of the world and our place in it.

About this title

Review:

Gray's dissection of modern delusion, cant and wishful thinking is to be welcomed in this moment of convulsion ... This is a book to learn from and argue with (Ben Wilson Literary Review)

A thoroughly enjoyable book ... These essays cover a remarkable range of topics, from Isaiah Berlin to Damien Hirst, from torture to environmentalism. But their unifying theme is that our naïve belief in the idea of progress has turned modern life into a constant round of shadow-boxing (David Runciman Observer)

A visionary ... one of the most reliably provocative and heterodox voices in British intellectual life today (Jonathan Derbyshire New Statesman)

Gray has consistently anticipated the shape of things to come . . . he teaches us that true humanism is to be found in uncertainty and doubt (Will Self)

Invigorating...elegant, witty, incisive... Gray's assault on Enlightenment ideas of progress is timelier than ever (John Banville The Guardian)

From the Back Cover:

'A wonderful writer. Gray is always original and always interesting ... the closest thing we have to a window-smashing French intellectual' Andrew Marr

'The most important living philosopher' Will Self

'Wise, furious and informative' A.S. Byatt

'Original, eloquent and provoking. He raises profound and valid doubts about the conventional "plot" of modern history' Financial Times

'Gray is a compelling writer, dismembering his targets with surgical irony' Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0141981113
• ISBN 13: 9780141981116
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640