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  • Published: 7 March 2013
  • ISBN: 9780141976549
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496

Gray's Anatomy

Selected Writings




'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

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.

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

  • Published: 7 March 2013
  • ISBN: 9780141976549
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496

About the author

John Gray

John Gray's most recent books are Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals , Al-Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern  and Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions. He is Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics.

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Praise for Gray's Anatomy

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