85 results (0,28599 seconds)

Show all filters

Brand

Merchant

Price (EUR)

Reset filter

Products
From
Shops

An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction combats traditional art criticism’s treatment of artworks as fixed unchanging mystical objects. For Walter Benjamin the consequences of addressing a work of art in this manner have a wider resonance: closed off from any active visual or tactile engagement the work of art becomes an object of passive contemplation and a potential tool of oppression. Benjamin argues that technology has fundamentally altered the way art is experienced. Potentially open to interpretation and accessible to many art in the age of mechanical reproduction has the potential to be mobilized for radical purposes. While ostensibly addressing the artistic consequences of technical reproducibility on art Benjamin also addresses the wider political consequences of this shift. | An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Griselda Pollock's Vision and Difference Feminism Femininity and the Histories of Art

An Analysis of Griselda Pollock's Vision and Difference Feminism Femininity and the Histories of Art

Vision and Difference published in 1988 is one of the most significant works in feminist visual culture arguing that feminist art history of is a political as well as academic endeavour. Pollock expresses how images are key to the construction of sexual difference both in visual culture and in broader societal experiences. Her argument places feminist theory at the centre of art history proffering the idea that a feminist understanding of art history is an analysis of art history itself. This text remains key not only to understand feminine art historically but to grasp strategies for representation in the future and adding to its contemporary value. | An Analysis of Griselda Pollock's Vision and Difference Feminism Femininity and the Histories of Art

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History

An Analysis of Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History

Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 essay on the history of the United States remains one of the most famous and influential works in the American canon. That is a testament to Turner's powers of creative synthesis; in a few short pages he succeeded in redefining the way in which whole generations of Americans understood the manner in which their country was shaped and their own character moulded by the frontier experience. It is largely thanks to Turner's influence that the idea of America as the home of a sturdily independent people – one prepared ultimately to obtain justice for themselves if they could not find it elsewhere – was born. The impact of these ideas can still be felt today: in many Americans' suspicion of big government in their attachment to guns – even in Star Trek's vision of space as the final frontier. Turner's thesis may now be criticised as limited (in its exclusion of women) and over-stated (in its focus on the western frontier). That it redefined an issue in a highly impactful way – and that it did so exceptionally eloquently – cannot be doubted. | An Analysis of Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

An Analysis of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The German sociologist Max Weber is considered to be one of the founding fathers of sociology and ranks among the most influential writers of the 20th-century. His most famous book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a masterpiece of sociological analysis whose power is based on the construction of a rigorous and intricately interlinked piece of argumentation. Weber’s object was to examine the relationship between the development of capitalism and the different religious ideologies of Europe. While many other scholars focused on the material and instrumental causes of capitalism’s emergence Weber sought to demonstrate that different religious beliefs in fact played a significant role. In order to do this he employed his analytical skills to understand the relationship between capitalism and religious ideology carefully considering how far Protestant and secular capitalist ethics overlapped and to what extent they mirrored each other. One crucial element of Weber’s work was his consideration the degree to which cultural values acted as implicit or hidden reasons reinforcing capitalist ethics and behavior – an investigation that he based on teasing out the ‘arguments’ that underpin capitalism. Incisive and insightful Weber’s analysis continues to resonate with scholars today. | An Analysis of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Jacques Derrida's Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences

An Analysis of Jacques Derrida's Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences

Jacques Derrida’s Structure Sign and Play is one of the most controversial and influential philosophical texts of the 20th century. Delivered at a conference on structuralism at Johns Hopkins the lecture took aim at the critical and philosophical fashions of the time and radically proposing a world in which meaning cannot be pinned down or traced to an origin but instead is continuously shifting fleeting and open to play. Hailed by many as a watershed in philosophy and literary theory Derrida’s lecture has shaped both disciplines. At once dense brilliant and humorous it is a crucial read for anyone interested in questioning our natural assumptions about meaning in the world. | An Analysis of Jacques Derrida's Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

An Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

Edmund Burke’s 1791 Reflections on the Revolution in France is a strong example of how the thinking skills of analysis and reasoning can support even the most rhetorical of arguments. Often cited as the foundational work of modern conservative political thought Burke’s Reflections is a sustained argument against the French Revolution. Though Burke is in many ways not interested in rational close analysis of the arguments in favour of the revolution he points out a crucial flaw in revolutionary thought upon which he builds his argument. For Burke that flaw was the sheer threat that revolution poses to life property and society. Sceptical about the utopian urge to utterly reconstruct society in line with rational principles Burke argued strongly for conservative progress: a continual slow refinement of government and political theory which could move forward without completely overturning the old structures of state and society. Old state institutions he reasoned might not be perfect but they work well enough to keep things ticking along. Any change made to improve them therefore should be slow not revolutionary. While Burke’s arguments are deliberately not reasoned in the ‘rational’ style of those who supported the revolution they show persuasive reasoning at its very best. | An Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

An Analysis of Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

In The Night Battles Carlo Ginzburg does more than introduce his readers to a novel group of supposed witches – the Benandanti from the northern Italian province of Friulia. He also invents and deploys new and creative ways of tackling his source material that allow him to move beyond their limitations. Witchcraft documents are notoriously tricky sources – produced by elites with fixed views they are products of questioning designed to prove or disprove guilt rather than understand the subtleties of belief and are very often the products of torture. Ginzburg placed great stress on variations in the evidence of the Benandanti over time to reveal changing patterns of belief and also focused on the concept of ‘reading against the text’ – essentially looking as much at what is absent from the record as at what is present in it and attempting to understand what the absences mean. His work not only pioneered the creation of a new school of historical study – ‘microhistory’ – it is also a great example of the creative thinking skills of connecting things together in an original way producing novel explanations for existing evidence and redefining an issue so as to see it in a new light. | An Analysis of Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death is widely recognized as one of the most significant and influential works of Christian philosophy written in the nineteenth century. One of the cornerstones of Kierkegaard’s reputation as a writer and thinker the book is also a masterclass in the art of interpretation. In critical thinking interpretation is all about defining and clarifying terms – making sure that everyone is on the same page. But it can also be about redefining terms: showing old concepts in a new light by interpreting them in a certain way. This skill is at the heart of The Sickness unto Death. Kierkegaard’s book focuses on the meaning of “despair” – the sickness named in the title. For Kierkegaard the key problem of existence was an individual’s relationship with God and he defines true despair as equating to the idea of sin – something that separates people from God or from the idea of a higher standard beyond ourselves. Kierkegaard’s interpretative journey into the ideas of despair sin and death is a Christian exploration of the place of the individual in the world. But its interpretative skills inspired generations of philosophers of all stripes – including notorious atheists like Jean-Paul Sartre. | An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture

An Analysis of Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture

Homi K. Bhabha’s 1994 The Location of Culture is one of the founding texts of the branch of literary theory called postcolonialism. While postcolonialism has many strands at its heart lies the question of interpreting and understanding encounters between the western colonial powers and the nations across the globe that they colonized. Colonization was not just an economic military or political process but one that radically affected culture and identity across the world. It is a field in which interpretation comes to the fore and much of its force depends on addressing the complex legacy of colonial encounters by careful sustained attention to the meaning of the traces that they left on colonized cultures. What Bhabha’s writing like so much postcolonial thought shows is that the arts of clarification and definition that underpin good interpretation are rarely the same as simplification. Indeed good interpretative clarification is often about pointing out and dividing the different kinds of complexity at play in a single process or term. For Bhabha the object is identity itself as expressed in the ideas colonial powers had about themselves. In his interpretation what at first seems to be the coherent set of ideas behind colonialism soon breaks down into a complex mass of shifting stances – yielding something much closer to postcolonial thought than a first glance at his sometimes dauntingly complex suggests. | An Analysis of Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

An Analysis of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Friedrich Hayek’s 1944 Road to Serfdom is a classic of conservative economic argument. While undeniably a product of a specific time in global politics – which saw the threat of fascism from Nazi Germany and its allies beguilingly answered by the promises of socialism – Hayek’s carefully constructed argument is a fine example of the importance of good reasoning in critical thinking. Reasoning is the art of constructing good persuasive arguments by organizing one’s thoughts supporting one’s conclusions and considering counter-arguments along the way. The Road to Serfdom illustrates all these skills in action; Hayek’s argument was that while many assumed socialism to be the answer to totalitarian fascist regimes the opposite was true. Socialist government’s reliance on a large state centralised control and bureaucratic planning – he insisted – actually amounts to a different kind of totalitarianism. Freedom of choice Hayek continued is a central requirement of individual freedom and hence a centrally planned economy inevitably constrains freedom. Though many commentators have sought to counter Hayek’s arguments his reasoning skills won over many of the politicians who have shaped the present day most notably Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. | An Analysis of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

An Analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

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 minor meaningless assignment. Undertaking to approach former classmates who had attended Smith College with her 10 years after their graduation the high-achieving Friedan was astonished to discover that the survey she had undertaken for a magazine feature revealed a high proportion of her contemporaries were suffering from a malaise she had thought was unique to her: profound dissatisfaction at the ‘ideal’ lives they had been living as wives mothers and homemakers. For Friedan this discovery stimulated a remarkable burst of creative thinking as she began to connect the elements of her own life together in new ways. The popular idea that men and women were equal but different – that men found their greatest fulfilment through work while women were most fulfilled in the home – stood revealed as a fallacy and the depression and even despair she and so many other women felt as a result was recast not as a failure to adapt to a role that was the truest expression of femininity but as the natural product of undertaking repetitive unfulfilling and unremunerated labor. Friedan's seminal expression of these new ideas redefined an issue central to many women's lives so successfully that it fuelled a movement – the ‘second wave’ feminism of the 1960s and 1970s that fundamentally challenged the legal and social framework underpinning an entire society. | An Analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

Few historians can claim to have undertaken historical analysis on as grand a scale as Geoffrey Parker in his 2013 work Global Crisis: War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. It is a doorstop of a book that surveys the ‘general crisis of the 17th century ’ shows that it was experienced practically throughout the world and was not merely a European phenomenon and links it to the impact of climate change in the form of the advent of a cold period known as the ‘Little Ice Age. ’ Parker’s triumph is made possible by the deployment of formidable critical thinking skills – reasoning to construct an engaging overall argument from very disparate material and analysis to re-examine and understand the plethora of complex secondary sources on which his book is built. In critical thinking analysis is all about understanding the features and structures of argument: how given reasons lead to conclusions and what kinds of implicit reasons and assumptions are being used. Historical analysis applies the same skills to the fabric of history asking how given chains of events occur how different reasons and factors interact and so on. Parker though takes things further than most in his quest to understand the meaning of a century’s-worth of turbulence spread across the whole globe. Beginning by breaking down the evidence for significant climatic cooling in the 17th-century (due to decreased solar activity) he moves on to detailed study of the effects the cooling had on societies and regimes across the world. From this detailed spadework he constructs a persuasive argument that accounts for the different ways in which the effects of climate change played out across the century – an argument with profound implications for a future likely to see serious climate change of its own. | An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Ha-Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

An Analysis of Ha-Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang used his 2003 work Kicking Away The Ladder to challenge the central orthodoxies of development economics using his creative thinking skills to shine new light on an old topic. Creative thinkers are often distinguished by their willingness to challenge received ideas and this is a central aspect of Chang’s work on development. Before Chang the received wisdom was that developing countries needed the same kinds of economic policies and institutions as developed countries in order to enjoy the same prosperity. But as Chang pointed out the historical evidence showed that First World economic success was in fact due to exactly the kinds of state intervention that modern development orthodoxy shuns. Western affluence is the product of precisely the kinds of state control – of protectionism and the setting of price tariffs – that developed countries have since denied the developing world in the name of economic freedom and ‘best practice. ’ By insisting that Third World nations should adopt these economic policies themselves argued Chang the West is actually stifling Third World economic prospects – kicking away the ladder. His carefully reasoned argument for a novel point of view was closely based on the critical thinking skill of producing novel explanations for existing evidence and led many to question development orthodoxies – sparking a rethink of modern development strategies for less-developed countries. | An Analysis of Ha-Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto Science Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century

An Analysis of Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto Science Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century

Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ is a key postmodern text and is widely taught in many disciplines as one of the first texts to embrace technology from a leftist and feminist perspective using the metaphor of the cyborg to champion socialist postmodern and anti-identitarian politics. Until Haraway’s work few feminists had turned to theorizing science and technology and thus her work quite literally changed the terms of the debate. This article continues to be seen as hugely influential in the field of feminism particularly postmodern materialist and scientific strands. It is also a precursor to cyberfeminism and posthumanism and perhaps anticipates the development of digital humanities. | An Analysis of Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto Science Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

An Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Of all the controversies facing historians today few are more divisive or more important than the question of how the Holocaust was possible. What led thousands of Germans – many of them middle-aged reservists with apparently little Nazi zeal – to willingly commit acts of genocide? Was it ideology? Was there something rotten in the German soul? Or was it – as Christopher Browning argues in this highly influential book – more a matter of conformity a response to intolerable social and psychological pressure? Ordinary Men is a microhistory the detailed study of a single unit in the Nazi killing machine. Browning evaluates a wide range of evidence to seek to explain the actions of the ordinary men who made up reserve Police Battalion 101 taking advantage of the wide range of resources prepared in the early 1960s for a proposed war crimes trial. He concludes that his subjects were not evil; rather their actions are best explained by a desire to be part of a team not to shirk responsibility that would otherwise fall on the shoulders of comrades and a willingness to obey authority. Browning's ability to explore the strengths and weaknesses of arguments – both the survivors' and other historians' – is what sets his work apart from other studies that have attempted to get to the root of the motivations for the Holocaust and it is also what marks Ordinary Men as one of the most important works of its generation. | An Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth

An Analysis of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon is one of the most important figures in the history of what is now known as postcolonial studies – the field that examines the meaning and impacts of European colonialism across the world. Born in the French colony of Martinique Fanon worked as a psychiatrist in Algeria another French colony that saw brutal violence during its revolution against French rule. His experiences power the searing indictment of colonialism that is his final book 1961’s The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon’s account of the physical and psychological violence of colonialism forms the basis of a passionate closely reasoned call to arms – a call for violent revolution. Incendiary even today it was more so in its time; the book first being published during the brutal conflict caused by the Algerian Revolution. Viewed as a profoundly dangerous work by the colonial powers of the world Fanon’s book helped to inspire liberation struggles across the globe. Though it has flaws The Wretched of the Earth is above all a testament to the power of passionately sustained and closely reasoned argument: Fanon’s presentation of his evidence combines with his passion to produce an argument that it is almost impossible not to be swayed by. | An Analysis of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan The Impact of the Highly Improbable

An Analysis of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan The Impact of the Highly Improbable

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 come at problems from the kinds of angles almost no one else could. And what is more when the ideas of creative thinkers are convincing they can reshape an entire topic and change the orthodoxy for good. Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s 2007 bestseller The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is precisely such a book: an entertaining polemical creative attack on how people in general and economic experts in particular view the possibility of catastrophic events. Taleb writes with rare creative verve for someone who is also an expert in mathematics finance and epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) and he martials all his skills to turn standard reasoning inside out. His central point is that far from being unimportant extremely rare events are frequently the most important ones of all: it is highly improbable but highly consequential occurrences – what he calls Black Swans – that have shaped history most. As a result Taleb concludes improbability is not a reason to act as if a possible event does not matter. Rather it should inspire the opposite reaction. | An Analysis of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan The Impact of the Highly Improbable

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of St. Augustine's The City of God Against the Pagans

An Analysis of St. Augustine's The City of God Against the Pagans

The City of God against the Pagans is a central text in the Western intellectual tradition. Made up of twenty-two lengthy books Augustine wrote his masterpiece over a thirteen-year period during which the Western Roman Empire began to unravel. The first ten books are a critique of pagan religion and philosophy while books eleven to twenty-two treat the relationship between the City of God and the Earthly City. Throughout Augustine conveys his mature vision of what it means for a Christian to live in a world with evil. Its arguments and ideas have provoked debate for nearly 1600 years and remains a central text in the disciplines of theology historiography and political theory. | An Analysis of St. Augustine's The City of God Against the Pagans

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat neurologist Oliver Sacks looked at the cutting-edge work taking place in his field and decided that much of it was not fit for purpose. Sacks found it hard to understand why most doctors adopted a mechanical and impersonal approach to their patients and opened his mind to new ways to treat people with neurological disorders. He explored the question of deciding what such new ways might be by deploying his formidable creative thinking skills. Sacks felt the issues at the heart of patient care needed redefining because the way they were being dealt with hurt not only patients but practitioners too. They limited a physician’s capacity to understand and then treat a patient’s condition. To highlight the issue Sacks wrote the stories of 24 patients and their neurological clinical conditions. In the process he rebelled against traditional methodology by focusing on his patients’ subjective experiences. Sacks did not only write about his patients in original ways – he attempt to come up with creative ways of treating them as well. At root his method was to try to help each person individually with the core aim of finding meaning and a sense of identity despite or even thanks to the patients’ condition. Sacks thus redefined the issue of neurological work in a new way and his ideas were so influential that they heralded the arrival of a broader movement – narrative medicine – that placed stronger emphasis on listening to and incorporating patients’ experiences and insights into their care. | An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author

An Analysis of Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author

Roland Barthes’s 1967 essay The Death of the Author argues against the traditional practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author into textual interpretation because of the resultant limitations imposed on a text. Hailing the birth of the reader Barthes posits a new abstract notion of the reader as the conceptual space containing all the text’s possible meanings. The essay has become one of the most cited works in literary criticism and is a key text for any reader approaching reader response theory. | An Analysis of Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

An Analysis of Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

Saba Mahmood’s 2005 Politics of Piety is an excellent example of evaluation in action. Mahmood’s book is a study of women’s participation in the Islamic revival across the Middle East. Mahmood – a feminist social anthropologist with left-wing secular political values – wanted to understand why women should become such active participants in a movement that seemingly promoted their subjugation. As Mahmood observed women’s active participation in the conservative Islamic revival presented (and presents) a difficult question for Western feminists: how to balance cultural sensitivity and promotion of religious freedom and pluralism with the feminist project of women’s liberation? Mahmood’s response was to conduct a detailed evaluation of the arguments made by both sides examining in particular the reasoning of female Muslims themselves. In a key moment of evaluation Mahmood suggests that Western feminist notions of agency are inadequate to arguments about female Muslim piety. Where Western feminists often restrict definitions of women’s agency to acts that undermine the normal male-dominated order of things Mahmood suggests instead that agency can encompass female acts that uphold apparently patriarchal values. Ultimately the Western feminist framework is in her evaluation inadequate and insufficient for discussing women’s groups in the Islamic revival. | An Analysis of Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

An Analysis of Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

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-interest. In The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution Bernard Bailyn begged to differ re-examining familiar evidence to establish new connections that in turn allowed him to generate fresh explanations. His influential reconceptualizing of the underlying reasons for America's independence drive focused instead on pamphleteering – and specifically on the actions of an influential group of ‘conspirators’ who identified and were determined to protect a particularly American set of values. For Bailyn these ideas could indeed be traced back to the ferment of the English Civil War – stemming from radical pamphleteers whose anti-authoritarian ideas crossed the Atlantic and embedded themselves in colonial ideology. Bailyn's thesis helps to explain the Revolution's success by pointing out how deep-rooted its founding ideas were; the Founding Fathers may have been reading Locke but the men they led were inspired by shorter pithier and altogether far more radical works. Only by understanding this Bailyn argues can we understand the passion and determination that allowed the rebel American states to defeat a global superpower. | An Analysis of Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

An Analysis of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

The end of the Cold War which occurred early in the 1990s brought joy and freedom to millions. But it posed a difficult question to the world's governments and to the academics who studied them: how would world order be remade in an age no longer dominated by the competing ideologies of capitalism and communism? Samuel P. Huntington was one of the many political scientists who responded to this challenge by conceiving works that attempted to predict the ways in which conflict might play out in the 21st century and in The Clash of Civilizations he suggested that a new kind of conflict one centred on cultural identity would become the new focus of international relations. Huntington's theories greeted with scepticism when his book first appeared in the 1990s acquired new resonance after 9/11. The Clash of Civilizations is now one of the most widely-set and read works of political theory in US universities; Huntington's theories have also had a measurable impact on American policy. In large part this is a product of his problem-solving skills. Clash is a monument to its author's ability to generate and evaluate alternative possibilities and to make sound decisions between them. Huntington's view that international politics after the Cold War would be neither peaceful nor liberal nor cooperative ran counter to the predictions of almost all of his peers yet his position – the product of an unusual ability to redefine an issue so as to see it in new ways – has been largely vindicated by events ever since. | An Analysis of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

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 thinking and critical analysis at their best providing an insight into two crucial elements of critical thinking. Hoffer is likely to go down in history as one of America’s great creative thinkers – a writer not bound by standard frameworks of thinking or academic conventions willing to beat his own path in framing the best possible answers to the questions he investigated. An impoverished largely unschooled manual laborer who had survived the worst effects of the Great Depression in the United States Hoffer was a passionate autodidact whose philosophical and psychological education came from omnivorous reading. Working without the help of any mentors he forged the fearsomely creative and individual approach to problems demonstrated in The True Believer. The book which earned him his reputation examines the different phenomena of fanaticism – religious or political – and applies Hoffer’s analytical skills to reveal that deep down all ‘true believers’ display the same needs and tendencies whatever their final choice of belief. Incisive and persuasive it remains a classic. | An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

GBP 6.50
1

An Analysis of Hanna Batatu's The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq

An Analysis of Hanna Batatu's The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq

How do you solve a problem like understanding Iraq? For Hanna Batatu the solution to this conundrum lay in generating alternative possibilities that effectively side-stepped the conventional wisdom of the time. Historians had long held that Iraq – like other artificial creations of ex-colonial European powers who drew lines onto the world map that ignored longstanding tribal ethnic and religious ties – was best understood by delving into its political and religious history. Batatu used the problem solving skills of asking productive questions and generating alternative possibilities to argue that Iraq’s history was better understood through the lens of a Marxist analysis focused on socio-economic history. The Old Social Classes concludes that the divisions present in Iraq – and exposed by the revolutionary movements of the 1950s – are those characterized by the struggle for control over property and the means of production. Additionally Batatu sought to establish that the most important political movements of the time notably the nationalist Ba'athists and the pan-Arab Free Officers Movement had their origins in a homegrown communist ideology inspired by local conditions and local inequality. By posing new questions – and by undertaking a vast amount of research in primary sources a rarity in the history of this region – Batatu was able to produce a strong new solution to a longstanding historiographical puzzle. | An Analysis of Hanna Batatu's The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq

GBP 6.50
1