FREE AND EQUAL - Daniel Chandler in conversation with Andy Burnham

We're delighted to be welcoming Daniel Chandler to the shop for the paperback launch of his brilliant book FREE AND EQUAL - an inspiring and thoughtprovoking exploration of how we can use Rawlsian political philosophy to help build a better society. Daniel will be in conversation with Andy Burnham (Mayor of Greater Manchester)

Doors: 6.15, starts: 6.30

Tickets start from £4.00. FREE AND EQUAL will also be available to purchase on the night and Daniel will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or [email protected] and we can arrange this for you.

About the book:

Imagine: you are designing a society, but you don't know who you'll be within it - rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight. What would you want that society to look like?

This is the revolutionary thought experiment proposed by the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. As economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler argues in this hugely ambitious and exhilarating intervention, it is by rediscovering Rawls that we can find a way out of the escalating crises that are devastating our world today.

Taking Rawls's humane and egalitarian liberalism as his starting point, Chandler builds a careful and ultimately irresistible case for a progressive agenda that would fundamentally reshape our societies for the better. He shows how we can protect free speech and transcend the culture wars; get money out of politics; and create an economy where everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential, where prosperity is widely shared, and which operates within the limits of our finite planet.

This is a book brimming with hope and possibility - a galvanising alternative to the cynicism that pervades our politics. Free and Equal has the potential not only to transform contemporary debate, but to offer a touchstone for a modern, egalitarian liberalism for many years to come, cementing Rawls's place in political discourse, and firmly establishing Chandler as a vital new voice for our time.

About the author:

Daniel Chandler is an economist and philosopher based at the London School of Economics, where he is Research Director of the Programme on Cohesive Capitalism. He has degrees in economics, philosophy and history from Cambridge and the LSE, and was awarded a Henry Fellowship at Harvard where he studied under Amartya Sen. He has worked in the British Government as a policy advisor in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit and Deputy Prime Minister's Office, and as a researcher at think tanks including the Resolution Foundation and Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Host or Publisher Blackwell's Manchester