Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing the law as his own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desires to the interests of all, the general will. Some have seen in this the promise of a free and equal relationship between society and the individual, while others have seen it as nothing less than a blueprint for totalitarianism. The Social Contract is not only one of the great defences of civil society, it is also unflinching in its study of the darker side of political systems. Paperback reprint.

Hailed as the finest book ever written on the nature of democracy, it continues to be an influential text on both sides of the Atlantic, above all in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. De Tocqueville examines the structures, institutions and operation of democracy, and shows how Europe can learn from American successes and failures. His central theme is the advancement of the rule of the people, but he also predicts that slavery will bring about the most horrible of civil wars, foresees that the USA and Russia will be the superpowers of the 20th century, and is 150 years ahead of his time in his views on the position and importance of women. Paperback reprint.

With an introduction by Dr Richard Serjeantson. Since its first publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan has been recognised as one of the most compelling, and most controversial, works of political philosophy written in English. Forged in the crucible of the civil and religious warfare of the mid-17th century, it proposes a political theory that combines an unequivocal commitment to natural human liberty with the conviction that the sovereign power of government must be exercised absolutely. Leviathan begins from some shockingly naturalistic starting-points: an analysis of human nature as being motivated by vain-glory and pride, and a vision of religion as simply the fear of invisible powers made up by the mind. Yet from these deliberately unpromising elements, Hobbes constructs with unparalleled forcefulness an elaborate, systematic, and comprehensive account of how political society ought to be: ordered, law-bound, peaceful. In Leviathan, Hobbes presents us with a portrait of politics which depicts how a state that is made up of the unified body of all its citizens will be powerful, fruitful, protective of each of its members, and - above all - free from internal violence. Paperback, 535pp.

Herodotus (c480 - c425 B.C.) is the Father of History and his Histories are the first piece of western historical writing. They are also the most entertaining. Why did Pheidippides run the 26 mile and 385 yards from Marathon to Athens? And what did he do when he got there? Was the Battle of Salamis fought between sausage sellers? Which is the oldest language in the world? And what is the best way to kill a crocodile? This wide-ranging history provides the answers as well as many fascinating insights into the Ancient World. 734pp in paperback.

This lively and idiosyncratic history of the charabanc or pleasure-bus takes the story to the end of World War II with archive photos, timetables, magazine articles, cartoons, advertisements, anecdotes and much more. An 1890 photograph of a four-horse charabanc trip sets the scene, with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, all in hats, crammed onto its five benches. Advertisements for the Great Western Railway show that it provided omnibuses to and from Paddington station, while postcards from the Lake District of the same period focus on the hilarious aspects of runaway horses on steep inclines. A timetable of twopenny fares from Cardiff in 1878 is evidence of a public horse-drawn service running every three and half hours. Motor buses established themselves in the early 20th century, with an archive photo of the Clarkson Steamer at Pulborough station in 1904 providing a typical early example. The Cambridge Motor Bus Company was initially unable to compete with the horsedrawn trams, but the march of progress was unstoppable and a cartoon shows the two modes of transport facing off. A charabanc outing to Margate in the 1920s features a stylish group of passengers, both men and women, adopting poses for the snap, while the Hereford Journal of a similar date covers a court case in which a charabanc forced a motor car off the road. In his defence the motorist insisted he always sounded his horn before taking corners, which hardly inspires confidence in his innocence. The South Wales double-deckers of the mid-20s are full of women in fashionable cloche hats, and meanwhile the newly formed Wallace Arnold tours were doing roaring business. Moving on to the War, a morale-boosting poster shows a lone bus struggling up a hill with its destination board inscribed "Victory via Effort". 224pp, softback, hundreds of archive photos, drawings and diagrams.

The conflict between Christians and Muslims in the early medieval period is full of resonance for our own times. We are used to hearing the story from a British perspective, including the exploits of King Richard the Lionheart and other famous European crusaders, known as the Franks, but this readable book, published in 2010 and with a Foreword by the late, great Terry Jones, aims to place the crusades in a Muslim context and tell the story from the point of view of the culture of those who lived in the disputed territories. Both Muslim and Frankish accounts tend to emphasize the Frankish threat in terms of religion without considering the complex mix of commercial interests and personal rivalries which influenced the wars. Waterson tells the story of the famed leaders of the jihad the lives and deeds of Zangi, Nur al-Din, Saladin and Baybars are all recounted. Terry Jones suggests that our own labelling of Islam as continually being the aggressor in fact replicates the propaganda machine of a whole millennium ago, when the 1071 Battle of Manzikert created the chain of events that led to the First Crusade. Waterson points out that the First Crusade took the Muslims by surprise, as described in the chronicles of Ibn al-Qalanasi, so that they initially misinterpreted its aims and scope, but even more importantly there were two power blocs fighting for supremacy, the Fatimid empire of Egypt and the Saljq Turkish empire. Even the lofty-minded Turkish ruler Nur al-Din was not above allowing a Frankish raid on one of his fellow-sultans. This theme continued throughout the conflicts until Saladin united his forces to take Jerusalem. A long-term unforeseen result of Christianity's attack on Islam was to force the sultans to create an army that subsequently defended them against the ravages of Mongol armies that came from further east. Every important battle is described, with a wealth of political and operational detail. 206pp, 15.4 x 23.7cm, maps, black and white photos.

Published as a reply to Burke's Reflections of the Revolution in France, Rights of Man is a classic statement of the belief in humanity's potential to change the world for the better. Paine writes with the vigour of a self-taught mast-maker and excise man. With a passion and rapier wit, he advocates such measures as free education, old age pensions, welfare benefits and child allowance over 100 years before these things were introduced in Britain. The work remains a compelling manifesto for social change. 226 page reprint in paperback.

The two political classics in this book are the product of a time of intense turmoil in Chinese history. They are anything but armchair strategy or ivory-tower speculation: they are serious, urgent and practical responses to the desperate situations in which they were written. They have been immensely influential both inside and outside China. 'The Art of War' analyses the nature of war and reveals how victory may be ensured. 'The Book of Lord Shang' is a political treatise for the instruction of rulers. With a new introduction by Robert Wilkinson to both texts and bound in a Wordsworth Classics of World Literature paperback. 256pp.

'Here Phillip, a father, laid down his highest hope: a twelve year old son, Niccolites.' 'This is the tomb of Megistias, Slain by the Medes at Thermopylae. Famous prophet, he knew what was coming. Still, he wouldn't leave the Spartan side.' A superb bilingual collection of 127 short, witty and often tender epigrams that span one thousand years of the written word. The book is evidence that Ancient Greek life was not only celebrated in great heroic epics, but was also commemorated in hundreds of artfully composed verse epitaphs, preserved in anthologies and gleaned from weathered headstones. These miniature masterpieces testify to the richness and variety of ancient life and to the wry dignity of commemorations to loved ones. It is a treasure trove of the obsessions, passions, fears, drudgeries, shortcomings and victories of ordinary Greeks and a reminder of death as a goad to the well-lived life. With introduction and biographies of the poets. 178pp, paperback.

From the Baroque courts via the upstairs-downstairs layout of turn of the last century mansions, through the distributed application structures and digitally connected smart houses of today, the world beneath and above our visual horizon is teeming with the invisible hands and handles of service. In Krajewski's interpretation, the servers are the ones producing, steering, guiding, channelling, creating the conditions of possibility of knowledge. The book offers an examination of service as a cultural technique, and the server as its central media-technical figure at several intersecting configurations in history. We look at the domestic transitioning from the 18th century court to the 19th century bourgeois household; the little helper of scientific work and finally the electronic server as a prime mover of present-day information channels. We are introduced to forgotten or misremembered figures of subalternity - Lessing's Waitwell, Maxwell's Demon, dumbwaiters and Lazy Susans, library servants and Internet bots. All inhabit fictional, social and architectural levels of knowledge acquisition, storage, processing and distribution. The book offers a playful use of arcane sources blending literary texts, styles, discourses, theoretical models, pop cultural and historical references - Jonathan Swift, Jacques Tati and Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and the Xerox PARK Papers to The Smiths. Classic servants like the butler or the governess have largely vanished, where the Internet is filled with servers - Web, ftp, email and others perform their daily drudgery, going about their business noiselessly and unnoticed. Why then are current-day digital drudges called servers? A superb blend of media studies, cultural history and literature, the work recounts the gradual transition of agency from human to non-human actors. 441pp, illus.