The Anti-Politics Machine (1990) examines how international development projects are conceived, researched, and put into practice. It also looks at what these projects actually achieve. Ferguson criti
Do we need religion to be good people? When Immanuel Kant tackled this question in 1793, he produced a book that remains a key text in the shaping of Western religious thought.
Charles Darwin called on a broad and unusually powerful combination of critical thinking skills to create his wide-ranging explanation for biological change, On the Origin of Species.It’s one of those
C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity is a perfect example of one of the most effective aspects of critical thinking skills: the use of reasoning to build a strong, logical argument. ¶Lewis originally wrote
English economist John Hobson’s 1902 Imperialism: A Study was an epoch-making study of the politics and economics of imperialism that shook imperialist beliefs to their core.A committed liberal, Hobso
In His book Gender and the Politics of History (1998), Scott draws attention to the fact that despite gender equality's long-term recognition there has been no genuinely revolutionary change unlike ec
Published in 1776, when America was teetering on the brink of war with Britain, Common Sense galvanized the colonists and George Washington's army, influencing not only the course of the Revolutionary
American scholar Jared Diamond deploys his powers of interpretation to great effect in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, which seeks to understand the meaning behind the available evi
Mahmood Mamdani’s 1996 Citizen and Subject is a powerful work of analysis that lays bare the sources of the problems that plagued, and often still plague, African governments.Analysis is one of the br
The first work written for the general public by the highly influential American economist Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom argues that economies and societies work best when a free market func
Michael R. Gottfredson and Travish Hirschi’s 1990 A General Theory of Crime is a classic text that helped reshape the discipline of criminology. It is also a testament to the powers of clear reasoning
The work of memory researchers Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch is a prime example of the ways in which good critical thinkers approach questions and the problems they raise.In the 1960s, researchers in
Nineteenth-century American politician John C. Calhoun occupies a paradoxical place in the history of political thought – and of critical thinking.On one hand, he is remembered as a committed advocate
MacLeod's 1987 work, ground-breaking for the way it combines field research with theory, follows the lives of two groups of young men from a low-income housing project in the Boston area to show how p
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is an unflinching dissection of the racial biases built into the American prison system. Named after the laws tha
Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique is possibly the best-selling of all the titles analysed in the Macat library, and arguably one of the most important. Yet it was the product of an apparently
Today we take it for granted that history is much more than the story of great men and the elites from which they spring. Other forms of history – the histories of gender, class, rebellion and nonconf
Most studies of slavery are underpinned by ideology and idealism. Eugene Genovese's ground-breaking book takes a stand against both these influences, arguing not only that all ideological history is b
Best known for her novels, Toni Morrison enters the realm of literary criticism to draw attention to the often overlooked significance of race in literature.
Before the publication of Nature's Metropolis in 1991, historians generally treated urban and rural areas as distinct from one another, each following separate lines of development and maturity.
Ever since the nineteenth century, people have claimed that the prosperity enjoyed by the First World was the result of its devotion to unconstrained economic freedoms. Chang claims that, in fact, Fir
Competitors have always existed in business, but what if it were possible to render your competition irrelevant? This is the critical question posed in Blue Ocean Strategy, which argues that the path
Robert Lucas is known among economists as one of the most influential macroeconomists of recent times – a reputation founded in no small part on the critical thinking skills displayed in his seminal 1
An instant bestseller, Sacks's 1985 book argues that, by connecting with their patients and pay attention to their stories, doctors can provide significantly more effective care.
Historians of the American Revolution had always seen the struggle for independence either as a conflict sparked by heavyweight ideology, or as a war between opposing social groups acting out of self-
Published in 1994, The Bell Curve caused uproar. Herrnstein and Murray claim that intelligence is the key factor in determining success in life and that it is genetic and, more controversially still,
The modern world has been marked by social revolutions that have transformed the states where they occurred. Theda Skocpol examines three of these uprisings-the French, Russian, and Chinese revolution
Goldstone examines the causes of revolutions and uprisings between 1500 and 1800 in both Europe and Asia. Many thinkers previously believed that Europe's distinctive history-particularly the rise of c
Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements is one of the most widely read works of social psychology written in the 20th-century. It exemplifies the powers of creative t
How was it possible for opponents of slavery to be so vocal in opposing the practice, when they were so accepting of the economic exploitation of workers in western factories – many of which were owne
David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd explores the links between social character-the ways in which members of a society are similar to one another-and social structures. He argues that as the United State
Douglas McGregor's 1960 book is a vital study of the conditions that make employment satisfying and meaningful. Traditionally, managers assumed people were lazy and would not work unless strictly cont
Four social groups brought down the French monarchy. Why? Because in 1789 each of these very different groups had compelling reasons to defy royal authority.
One of the primary qualities of good creative thinking is an intellectual freedom to think outside of the box. Good creative thinkers resist orthodox ideas, take new lines of enquiry, and generally co
Reasoning is the critical thinking skill concerned with the production of arguments: making them coherent, consistent, and well-supported; and responding to opposing positions where necessary. The Bet
‘Reconstruction’ is the name given to the period that, beginning shortly before the end of the American Civil War and running until 1877, saw the frustration of federal government's attempts to integr
Written around 397, Confessions is one of the most referenced works in the Western literary tradition. The initial nine of 13 books draw a compelling narrative of the first 43 years of Augustine's lif
Hamid Dabashi’s 1997 work Theology of Discontent reveals a creative thinker capable not only of understanding how an argument is built, but also of redefining old issues in new ways. The Iranian Revol
American political theorist Robert Dahl’s 1961 work of political theory exhibits deep levels of creative thinking. When Dahl wrote, the American system of liberal democracy was generally considered to
