The Macat Library: Great Works for Critical Thinking
About the Book Series
Making the ideas of the world’s great thinkers accessible, affordable, and comprehensible to everybody, everywhere.
With a growing list of over 180 titles across a broad range of subject areas, Macat works with leading academics from the world’s top universities to produce new analyses that focus on the ideas and the impact of the most influential works ever written. By setting them in context – and looking at the influences that shaped their authors, as well as the responses they provoked – Macat encourages readers to look at these classics and game-changers with fresh eyes.
An Analysis of John P. Kotter's Leading Change
1st Edition
By Yaamina Salman, Nick Broten
August 08, 2017
John P. Kotter’s Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail is a classic of business literature, and an example of high-level analysis and evaluation. In critical thinking, analysis is all about the sequence and features of arguments. When combined with evaluation of the strengths and ...
An Analysis of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty
1st Edition
By Ashleigh Campi, Lindsay Scorgie-Porter
August 08, 2017
In his wonderfully clear and cogent essay On Liberty, Mill contends that individuals should be as free as possible from interference by government. Proposing that individual fulfilment is the surest route to collective happiness, he argues passionately against the "tyranny of the majority," and ...
An Analysis of John W. Dower's War Without Mercy: Race And Power In The Pacific War
1st Edition
By Vincent Sanchez, Jason Xidias
August 08, 2017
John Dower’s War Without Mercy is an attempt to resolve the problem of why the United States fought World War II so very differently in the Pacific and European theaters. Specifically, the author sets out to explain why there was such vicious hostility between the US and Japan during the conflict. ...
An Analysis of Karl Marx's Capital
1st Edition
By Macat Team
August 08, 2017
A critical analysis of Karl Marx’s Capital, which is without question one of the most influential books to be published in the course of the past two centuries. Controversial in its politics, and arriving at conclusions that are passionately debated to this day, it is nonetheless a fine ...
An Analysis of Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic
1st Edition
By Simon Young, Helen Killick
August 08, 2017
Keith Thomas's classic study of all forms of popular belief has been influential for so long now that it is difficult to remember how revolutionary it seemed when it first appeared. By publishing Religion and the Decline of Magic, Thomas became the first serious scholar to attempt to synthesize ...
An Analysis of Mahbub ul Haq's Reflections on Human Development
1st Edition
By Riley Quinn
August 08, 2017
What is the ultimate goal of any human society? There have been many answers to this question. But by producing a series of notably well-structured arguments, economist Mahbub ul Haq’s Reflections on Human Development persuaded readers that the goal should be defined quite simply as the requirement...
An Analysis of Max Weber's Politics as a Vocation
1st Edition
By Tom McClean, Jason Xidias, William Brett
August 08, 2017
German sociologist Max Weber’s 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation is widely regarded as a masterpiece of political theory and sociology. Its central strength lies in Weber’s deployment of masterful interpretative skills to power his discussion of modern politics. Interpretation involves ...
An Analysis of Michael R. Gottfredson and Travish Hirschi's A General Theory of Crime
1st Edition
By William Jenkins
August 08, 2017
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 and interpretation. In critical thinking terms, reasoning is all about presenting a solid and ...
An Analysis of Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Ecomonic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000
1st Edition
By Riley Quinn
August 08, 2017
Paul Kennedy owes a great deal to the editor who persuaded him to add a final chapter to this study of the factors that contributed to the rise and fall of European powers since the age of Spain’s Philip II. This tailpiece indulged in what was, for an historian, a most unusual activity: it looked ...
An Analysis of Plato's The Republic
1st Edition
By James Orr
August 08, 2017
The Republic is Plato's most complete and incisive work – a detailed study of the problem of how best to ensure that justice exists in a real society, rather than as merely the product of an idealized philosophical construct. The work considers several competing definitions of justice, and looks ...
An Analysis of Rene Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy
1st Edition
By Andreas Vrahimis
August 08, 2017
René Descartes’s 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy is a cornerstone of the history of western thought. One of the most important philosophical texts ever written, it is also a masterclass in the art of critical thinking – specifically when it comes to reasoning and interpretation. Descartes ...
An Analysis of Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein's Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
1st Edition
By Mark Egan
August 08, 2017
When it was published in 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness quickly became one of the most influential books in modern economics and politics. Within a short time, it had inspired whole government departments in the US and UK, and...