• The best books on Hannah Arendt - The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
  • The best books on Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
  • The best books on Hannah Arendt - Men in Dark Times by Hannah Arendt
  • The best books on Hannah Arendt - Thinking Without a Banister by Hannah Arendt
  • The best books on Hannah Arendt - Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl

The best books on Hannah Arendt, recommended by Samantha Rose Hill

Unimpressed by the response of philosophers to the rise of Nazism in her native Germany, Hannah Arendt rejected the notion of being a philosopher and said she was a political theorist. Samantha Rose Hill, writer and formerly assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, talks us through Hannah Arendt’s life and work—and suggests which books to read if we want to learn more about her and her ideas.

  • The best books on Wittgenstein - Ludwig Wittgenstein by Edward Kanterian
  • The best books on Wittgenstein - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk
  • The best books on Wittgenstein - Recollections of Wittgenstein by (ed.) Rush Rhees
  • The best books on Wittgenstein - Wittgenstein by Severin Schroeder
  • The best books on Wittgenstein - The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy by Friedrich Waismann

The best books on Wittgenstein, recommended by Peter Hacker

A pioneering figure in analytic philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is a clear example of philosophical genius. A profoundly intense, tortured, and solitary man, he produced two masterpieces of philosophy with fundamentally opposed views of language — both of which have been wildly influential. Peter Hacker introduces us to perhaps the most important philosopher since Kant, and explains why Wittgenstein would be horrified by Noam Chomsky.

  • The best books on Spinoza - The Collected Works of Spinoza (Volume I) by Baruch Spinoza & Edwin Curley
  • The best books on Spinoza - Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics by Edwin Curley
  • The best books on Spinoza - A Study of Spinoza's Ethics by Jonathan Bennett
  • The best books on Spinoza - The Explainability of Experience: Realism and Subjectivity in Spinoza's Theory of the Human Mind by Ursula Renz
  • The best books on Spinoza - Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise by Susan James

The best books on Spinoza, recommended by Steven Nadler

In 1656 Baruch Spinoza was thrown out by Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish congregation for ‘abominable heresies’ and ‘monstrous deeds’, ensuring he would be forever remembered as a radical thinker. Here Steven Nadler, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of a number of books on Spinoza, talks us through the life and work of the 17th century philosopher whose worldview remains, in many ways, remarkably modern.

  • The Best Nietzsche Books - Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rüdiger Safranski & translator Shelley Frisch
  • The Best Nietzsche Books - Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy by Maudemarie Clark
  • The Best Nietzsche Books - Nietzsche’s System by John Richardson
  • The Best Nietzsche Books - Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche & Walter Kaufmann (translator)
  • The Best Nietzsche Books - On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche

The Best Nietzsche Books, recommended by Brian Leiter

Relativist, atheist, existentialist, Nazi. All have been said of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, some with more reason than others. In 2011, we asked Nietzsche expert Brian Leiter to explain the appeal of the controversial philosopher and to recommend books by and about him. In September (2020) our philosophy editor, Nigel Warburton, asked Brian about some of the latest Nietzsche books, notable works that have come out in the decade since we first spoke to him.