Anthony Kenny’s The Ivory Tower is a compact collection of essays on what happens when philosophical distinctions are forced into contact with law, war and public institutions.

The first half concentrates on criminal responsibility: intention, foresight, mens rea, duress and the role of expert testimony. The second half turns to nuclear strategy and deterrence, asking how concepts like risk, intention and moral responsibility mutate once the scale becomes geopolitical.

Essays on counterforce, countervalue, nuclear ethics and recklessness make the book very much a Cold War document, but not merely a period piece; its underlying question is whether abstract reasoning can survive being asked to justify institutions capable of enormous harm. An epilogue on academic freedom completes the book’s recurring argument against philosophy sealed off from the conditions in which ideas acquire consequences.

Basil Blackwell, Oxford and New York, 1985. First edition. Hardcover with dust jacket. Light shelf wear and mild age-toning to jacket; internally clean and sound.