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Routledge Classics

About the Book Series

"Routledge Classics is more than just a collection of texts...it embodies and circulates challenging ideas and keeps vital debates current and alive." – Hilary Mantel

The Routledge Classics series, with titles by Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Mary Midgley, was launched in 2001. The series contains the very best of Routledge’s publishing over the past century or so, books that have, by popular consent, become established as classics in their field. Drawing on a fantastic heritage of innovative writing published by Routledge and its associated imprints, this series makes available in attractive, affordable form some of the most important works of modern times.

In 2021 we are delighted to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Routledge Classics series with the publication of fifteen stellar new titles. All include new forewords or introductions and eye-catching cover designs, a hallmark of the series.

244 Series Titles


The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell

The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell

1st Edition

By Bertrand Russell
April 06, 2009

Few philosophers have had a more profound influence on the course of modern philosophy than Bertrand Russell. The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell is a comprehensive anthology of Russell’s most definitive essays written between 1903 and 1959. First published in 1961, this remarkable collection is...

The Scientific Outlook

The Scientific Outlook

1st Edition

By Bertrand Russell
April 06, 2009

According to Bertrand Russell, science is knowledge; that which seeks general laws connecting a number of particular facts. It is, he argues, far superior to art, where much of the knowledge is intangible and assumed. In The Scientific Outlook, Russell delivers one of his most important works, ...

Unpopular Essays

Unpopular Essays

1st Edition

By Bertrand Russell
April 06, 2009

A classic collection of Bertrand Russell’s more controversial works, reaffirming his staunch liberal values, Unpopular Essays is one of Russell’s most characteristic and self-revealing books. Written to "combat… the growth in Dogmatism", on first publication in 1950 it met with critical acclaim and...

Black Feminist Thought Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

1st Edition

By Patricia Hill Collins
September 11, 2008

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist ...

How the Irish Became White

How the Irish Became White

1st Edition

By Noel Ignatiev
September 11, 2008

'…from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called ‘path breaking,’ ‘seminal,’ ‘essential,’ a ‘must read.’ How the Irish Became White is such a study.' John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, Amherst The Irish came to America in ...

Keeping Faith Philosophy and Race in America

Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America

1st Edition

By Cornel West
September 11, 2008

'The sheer range of West's interests and insights is staggering and exemplary: he appears equally comfortable talking about literature, ethics, art, jurisprudence, religion, and popular-cultural forms.' - Artforum Keeping Faith is a rich, moving and deeply personal collection of essays from one of ...

Outside in the Teaching Machine

Outside in the Teaching Machine

1st Edition

By Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
September 11, 2008

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is one of the most pre-eminent postcolonial theorists writing today and a scholar of genuinely global reputation. This collection, first published in 1993, presents some of Spivak’s most engaging essays on works of literature such as Salman Rushdie's controversial ...

Reel to Real Race, class and sex at the movies

Reel to Real: Race, class and sex at the movies

1st Edition

By bell hooks
September 11, 2008

Movies matter – that is the message of  Reel to Real, bell hooks’ classic collection of essays on film. They matter on a personal level, providing us with unforgettable moments, even life-changing experiences and they can confront us, too, with the most profound social issues of race, sex and ...

The World of Perception

The World of Perception

1st Edition

By Maurice Merleau-Ponty
March 12, 2008

'In simple prose Merleau-Ponty touches on his principle themes. He speaks about the body and the world, the coexistence of space and things, the unfortunate optimism of science – and also the insidious stickiness of honey, and the mystery of anger.' - James Elkins Maurice Merleau-Ponty was one of ...

A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful

A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful

1st Edition

By Edmund Burke
March 07, 2008

Edited with an introduction and notes by James T. Boulton. 'One of the greatest essays ever written on art.'– The Guardian Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful is one of the most important works of aesthetics ever published. Whilst many ...

The Varieties of Religious Experience A Study In Human Nature

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study In Human Nature

1st Edition

By William James
March 07, 2008

'Is life worth living? Yes, a thousand times yes when the world still holds such spirits as Professor James.' - Gertrude Stein A classic of American thought, William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience is an extraordinary study of human spirituality in all its forms and one of the most ...

Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out

Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out

1st Edition

By Slavoj Zizek
October 30, 2007

The title is just the first of many startling asides, observations and insights that fill this guide to Hollywood on the Lacanian psychoanalyst’s couch. Zizek introduces the ideas of Jacques Lacan through the medium of American film, taking his examples from over 100 years of cinema, from Charlie ...

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