ROBERT GRANT is Reader in English Literature at Glasgow University. A frequent contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, he is the author of two previous books, Oakeshott and The Politics of Sex and Other Essays, and of over 100 essays, articles and reviews. He has lectured widely in the USA, Eastern Europe and Japan, and is currently writing Michael Oakeshott's 'official' biography.

'The cumulative effect of the new collection [of essays, is]...one of outstanding brilliance, insight, trenchancy and faithful answerability to the argument in hand.' - David Wiggins, New College, Oxford 'Imagining the Real...covers a wide range of topics (from honesty to Derrida, from The Tempest to game theory), but with a consistent purpose: to explore the ways in which culture is the bearer and guarantor of human values, and to expose the errors of those who think otherwise.' - Noel Malcolm, The New Criterion

• Introduction The Politics of Equilibrium Freedom for What? Must New Worlds Also be Good? Honesty, Honour and Trust The Ideology of Deconstruction Fetishizing the Unseen Thinking Degree Zero Fiction, Meaning and Utterance The Case of L. H. Myers Providencem, Authority and the Moral Life in The Tempest Index