Uncertainty about what is truly going on makes it simpler to hold to irrational views.' From the man who wrote more about his country than anybody, razor-sharp thoughts on patriotism, bigotry, and power. Penguin Modern is a collection of fifty new books that celebrate the legendary Penguin Modern Classics series' pioneering spirit, with each giving a concentrated dosage of the series' contemporary, worldwide flavour. From Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem, and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson, here are essays that are both radical and inspiring, poems that are both moving and disturbing, and stories that are both surreal and fantastic, taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of space.