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Butler's 1990 work shook the foundations of feminist theory and changed the conversation about gender. While many thinkers already accepted that "gender" was a category constructed by society defined by one's genitalia, Butler went further and argued that gender is performative-it exists only in the acts that express it.

In Beyond God, Neitzsche explores what society might look like if we were brave enough to emerge fully from the shadow of the Christian God proposing that God is dead-and that "philosophers of the future" must construct a new morality to replace the Christian one.

What is the nature of our personal relationship with God? That's the core question of Fear and Trembling, published in 1843. If God asks us to do something we instinctively feel is unethical, must we obey and have faith that He knows best?

Capitalism, thought Karl Marx, works by exploiting the working class. Their wages do not reflect the value of their labor. Marx concluded that capitalism would fail because of this contradiction at the heart of the capitalist system. He wrote Capital to give activists the theories and language they needed to criticise the system.

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam argues that Americans have become disconnected from one another and from the institutions of their common life, and investigates the consequences of this change.

In his best selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, economist Thomas Piketty argues that capitalism has no tendency towards a fair distribution of wealth taking issue with the idea that inequality declines as capitalism matures.

More than two centuries after its initial publication in 1781, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason remains perhaps the most influential text in modern philosophy. Kant wanted metaphysicians to move away from their endless battles about whether or not human knowledge must conform to independently given objects.

Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples is unsurpassed as an overview of Arab history from the rise of Islam to the late twentieth century. Going far beyond political history, it provides a deep analysis of social, cultural and economic structures.

In Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein presents a radical approach to the philosophy of language and the mind, setting out a startlingly fresh conception of philosophy itself. Wittgenstein begins from the insight that most philosophical problems trace back to incorrect assumptions about the nature of language.

'Politics as a Vocation' examines what makes good political leaders and explores the effects of political action on modern societies. On one level, it summarizes the political scholarship of one of the founding fathers of social science. On another, it reflects practical concerns about the future of Germany after its defeat in World War I.

More than 2,500 years after it was written, Symposium remains a key text for philosophers, historians, writers, artists and politicians. Plato imagines seven important historical figures, including the philosopher Socrates, debating eros (human love and desire).

In The Age of Revolution, Eric Hobsbawm focuses on the tumultuous late 18th and early 19th centuries. He argues that the "dual revolutions" of the time -the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution - changed the way the whole world thought about politics and power, and fundamentally shaped the modern era.

Excited by the scientific breakthroughs of the day, David Hume set out to construct a science of the mind. 1748's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the result. A work that had a huge influence on great thinkers, including Kant, An Enquiry is Hume's examination of how we obtain information and form beliefs.

One of the most influential works of political theory ever written, The Federalist Papers collects 85 essays from 1787 and 1788, when the United States was a new country looking to find its way politically.

Gordon W. Allport's 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice not only helped mold the ways in which psychologists investigate prejudice - it also shaped US society as a whole, making a substantial contribution to the Civil Rights Movement and America's anti-discrimination and anti-segregation laws.

Though written more than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is still both widely read and very influential. Readers turn to it for its direct advice on the question of how to attain - and retain - power. Machiavelli's answer, in brief: use any means necessary to make sure the state survives.

The bizarre story of Martin Guerre-a peasant who disappears from a small village in sixteenth-century France and whose place is taken by an imposter-has captivated historians for centuries.

Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) analyzes the ways in which excessive government planning can erode democracy. The work draws influential parallels between the totalitarianism of both left and right, questioning the central government control exerted by Western democracies.

The Second Sex caused uproar when it appeared in 1949. Simone de Beauvoir sets out groundbreaking ideas on what it meant to be a woman, charting the oppression of "the second sex." She argued that gender identity was shaped by upbringing in a world ruled by men, and her most startling thesis became a rallying cry for the feminist movement.

Du Bois's 1903 examination of the plight of African Americans is widely recognized as among the most important ever written on race and identity.

Published anonymously by Locke in 1689, Two Treatises claims that a monarch's right to rule does not come from God, but from the people he rules. In the mid-seventeenth century, England removed its king and tried different systems of government before opting to restore a monarchy.

Democracy in America, published in 1835 and 1840, challenged conventional thinking about democracy when it first appeared and is still cited today for its in-depth analysis of what makes a successful democracy.

One of the most important strategy manuals ever published, Chinese general Sun Tzu's The Art of War has also been used as a guide to modern business, giving executives an insight into the vital importance of tactics and preparation.

"Black Skin, White Masks offers a radical analysis of the psychological effects of colonization on the colonized. Fanon witnessed the effects of colonization first hand both in his birthplace, Martinique, and again later in life when he worked as a psychiatrist in another French colony, Algeria.

How does a state control its citizens? Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish answers this question by investigating the prison system. Foucault argues that prison created and merged into a wider system of surveillance that extends throughout society.

"How do we know what knowledge is? In his remarkable 1963 article, Gettier proves that Plato's 2000-year-old definition of knowledge is flawed-in just 930 words.

Published in 1651, Leviathan examines where kings get their authority to rule and what they must, in turn, do for their people. Hobbes argues that kings do not have a divine right to hold power; they must earn it by keeping a "social contract" with those they rule over and protect.

Before Browning's 1992 book, most Holocaust scholarship focused either on the experience of the victims or on the Nazi political ideology driving the slaughter. Browning investigates something else: the men who carried out acts of extreme violence. Who were they? How could they end up committing such unspeakable acts?

Though nearly 1500 years old, The Rule of St. Benedict remains one of the most influential texts in the Western monastic movement. It offers a unique insight into the early development of Christian monasticism and for believers, continues to offer guidance about incorporating meditation and prayer into devotions.

Carson's 1962 work Silent Spring was one of the first books ever to highlight environmentalist issues. Focusing on the negative, widespread, and long-lasting effects of human activity on the environment-particularly through the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture-Carson argued that we are all morally obliged to look after the environment.