Included in the BEST OF GRANTA launch list for 2023: an exciting, radical work of philosophy that challenges our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human
'Powerful and brilliant ... Straw Dogs challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be human, and convincingly shows that most of them are delusions.' J. G. Ballard From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world. In his radical work of philosophy John Gray sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism enthrone humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. Even in the present day, despite Darwin's discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals. John Gray argues that this belief in human difference is a dangerous illusion and explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned. The result is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that leads the reader to question our deepest-held beliefs.
"My book of the year was Straw Dogs. I read it once, I read it twice and took notes. I arranged to meet its author so I could publicize the book - I thought it that good ... a devastating critique of liberal humanism, and all of it set out in easy-to-digest (although hard-to-swallow) apercus" - New Statesman
"One of the most important books published this year, and will probably prove to be one of the most important this century ... nobody can hope to understand the times in which we live unless they have read Straw Dogs" - Mail on Sunday
"There is unlikely to be a more provocative or more compelling book published this year than Straw Dogs ... Gray is one of the most consistently interesting and unpredictable thinkers in Britain" - Observer
"Relentless in its upheaval of the ideology and moral framework most of us inhabit like a big comfy armchair. Progress, freedom, selfhood, morality, justice and technology - all are turned around so you doubt which direction you are going, if any." - Frieze
"A complex and concentrated read" - Spectator
"John Gray's pessimistic but challenging view of humankind among the animals, Straw Dogs enraged and engaged me more than any other book this year" - Times
"Gray is undeniably a force to be reckoned with.He is the most lucid and compelling writer about political theory since Isaiah Berlin, and he was understandably hailed by Will Self as "the most important living philosopher" - The Independent
"Exhilarating" - Herald