Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for students to cutting-edge scholarly work. Polity publishes some of the world’s leading thinkers in social and political theory and philosophy including Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...

, Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

, Ulrich Beck

Ulrich Beck

Ulrich Beck is a German sociologist who holds a professorship at Munich University and at the London School of Economics.-Life:...

, Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...

, Serge Moscovici

Serge Moscovici

Serge Moscovici is a Romanian-born French social psychologist, currently the director of the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale , which he co-founded in 1974 at the Maison des sciences de l'homme in Paris...

, Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...

, Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricœur was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation...

, Alain Touraine

Alain Touraine

Alain Touraine is a French sociologist born in Hermanville-sur-Mer. He is research director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he founded the Centre d'étude des mouvements sociaux . He is best known for being the originator of the term "post-industrial society"...

, Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...

, Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military....

, Hélène Cixous

Hélène Cixous

Hélène Cixous is a professor, French feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, literary critic and rhetorician. She holds honorary degrees from Queen's University and the University of Alberta in Canada; University College Dublin in Ireland; the University of York and University College...

, Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman is a Polish sociologist who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the Communist government which he had previously supported...

, Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29...

, Elspeth Guild, Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communication research....

, Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin is an American economist, writer, public speaker, political advisor and activist. He is the founder and president of the Foundation On Economic Trends...

, Juliet Mitchell

Juliet Mitchell

Juliet Mitchell is a British Psychoanalyst and socialist feminist, who was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge and Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at Cambridge University. In 2010, she's appointed to be the Director of the Expanded Doctoral School in Psychoanalytic Studies at...

, Carole Pateman

Carole Pateman

Carole Pateman is a British feminist and political theorist. She earned a DPhil at the University of Oxford. Since 1990, Professor Pateman has taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Los Angeles . In 2007, she was named a Fellow of the British Academy...

, Brian Barry

Brian Barry

Brian Barry FBA was a moral and political philosopher. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford, obtaining the degrees of B.A. and D.Phil under the direction of H. L. A. Hart....

, Norberto Bobbio

Norberto Bobbio

Norberto Bobbio was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa....

, Primo Levi

Primo Levi

Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...

, Toni Negri and Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....

.

Polity also publishes nonfiction for a general readership, including history, biography, politics and current affairs. Recent biographies include Joachim Radkau

Joachim Radkau

Joachim Radkau is a German historian.- Life :Son of a Protestant priest, he studied history in Münster, Berlin and Hamburg from 1963 to 1968. He was influenced e.g. by Fritz Fischer. His doctorate 1970 treated the role of German immigrants 1933-45 on Franklin D. Roosevelt...

's Max Weber

Max Weber

Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...

, Volker Skierka’s Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

, Jürgen Neffe’s Einstein and Joachim Fest

Joachim Fest

Joachim Clemens Fest was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor, best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including an important biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and the German Resistance...

’s Albert Speer

Albert Speer

Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...

. Polity’s Celebrities series includes books on Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Bob Marley

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...

, David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

, Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson

Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...

, Muhammed Ali and David Beckham

David Beckham

David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...

.

Polity is an independent publisher that was established in 1984. Its editorial offices are located in Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 in the UK; it also has offices in Oxford, UK, and in Boston, USA. Polity’s books are sold and distributed under the Polity imprint throughout the world.

Authors

• Theodor Adorno
• Jean Baudrillard
  Jean Baudrillard
  Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...
  
  
• Zygmunt Bauman
  Zygmunt Bauman
  Zygmunt Bauman is a Polish sociologist who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the Communist government which he had previously supported...
  
  
• Ulrich Beck
  Ulrich Beck
  Ulrich Beck is a German sociologist who holds a professorship at Munich University and at the London School of Economics.-Life:...
  
  
• Walter Benjamin
  Walter Benjamin
  Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
  
  
• Norberto Bobbio
  Norberto Bobbio
  Norberto Bobbio was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa....
  
  
• Pierre Bourdieu
  Pierre Bourdieu
  Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
  
  
• Alex Callinicos
  Alex Callinicos
  Alexander Theodore Callinicos is a Trotskyist political theorist, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party and its International Secretary, and is Director of the Centre for European Studies at King's College London...
  
  
• Manuel Castells
  Manuel Castells
  Manuel Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communication research....
  
  
• Cornelius Castoriadis
  Cornelius Castoriadis
  Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.-Early life in Athens:...
  
  
• Jacques Derrida
  Jacques Derrida
  Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
  
  
• Georges Duby
  Georges Duby
  Georges Duby was a French historian specializing in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages...
  
  
• Norbert Elias
  Norbert Elias
  Norbert Elias was a German sociologist of Jewish descent, who later became a British citizen.-Biography:...
  
  
• Amitai Etzioni
  Amitai Etzioni
  Amitai Etzioni is a German-Israeli-American sociologist.-Biography:In 1933, Amitai Etzioni was only four years old when the Nazis rose to power in Germany. He was separated from his family but reunited with them by the year 1947...
  
  
• Harold Garfinkel
  Harold Garfinkel
  Harold Garfinkel was a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is known for establishing and developing ethnomethodology as a field of inquiry in sociology.-Biography:...
  
  
• Anthony Giddens
  Anthony Giddens
  Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29...
  
  
• Elspeth Guild
• Jürgen Habermas
  Jürgen Habermas
  Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
  
  
• Stuart Hall
  Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)
  Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of...
  
  
• Primo Levi
  Primo Levi
  Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
  
  
• Serge Moscovici
  Serge Moscovici
  Serge Moscovici is a Romanian-born French social psychologist, currently the director of the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale , which he co-founded in 1974 at the Maison des sciences de l'homme in Paris...
  
  
• Jeremy Rifkin
  Jeremy Rifkin
  Jeremy Rifkin is an American economist, writer, public speaker, political advisor and activist. He is the founder and president of the Foundation On Economic Trends...
  
  
• Richard Rorty
  Richard Rorty
  Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
  
  
• Tzvetan Todorov
  Tzvetan Todorov
  Tzvetan Todorov is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher. He has lived in France since 1963 with his wife Nancy Huston and their two children, writing books and essays about literary theory, thought history and culture theory....
  
  
• Alain Touraine
  Alain Touraine
  Alain Touraine is a French sociologist born in Hermanville-sur-Mer. He is research director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he founded the Centre d'étude des mouvements sociaux . He is best known for being the originator of the term "post-industrial society"...
  
  
• Loic Wacquant
  Loïc Wacquant
  Loïc Wacquant is a sociologist, specializing in urban sociology, urban poverty, racial inequality, the body, social theory and ethnography....
  
  
• Slavoj Žižek
  Slavoj Žižek
  Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....