Representations of the IntellectualAre intellectuals merely the servants of special interests or do they have a larger responsibility? In these wide ranging essays, one of our most brilliant and fiercely independent public thinkers addresses this question with extraordinary eloquence. Said sees the intellectual as an exile and amateur whose role it is 'to speak the truth to power' even at the risk of ostracism or imprisonment. Drawing on the examples of Jonathan Swift and Theodor

Reconstructing how weekly patterns insinuated themselves into the social practices and mental habits of Americans

The Crying of Lot 49 is Thomas Pynchon's highly original classic satire of modern America

critical literacy

Stephen Kessler

its solid heft

And although this may appear to have little relevance in a biography of Saladin

and the future

an imaginary Malaysian town

Written during the bleakest days of the Second World War

an independent print and design studio that aims to reconsider publishing as an ethical medium and reimagine the book as a design object

Nothing Personal is Baldwin’s deep probe into the American condition

Kojiro Nakamura recently retired from the University of Tokyo