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 naive 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 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 Invigorating...elegant, witty, incisive... Gray's assault on Enlightenment ideas of progress is timelier than ever -- John Banville The Guardian

John Gray is most recently the acclaimed author of Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions, Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern and Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. He is Emeritus Professor of European Thought at the University of London.