Macat international limited (Más de 1300 resultados)

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. 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.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. 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 others as far afield as Singapore. One of the keys to Nudge's success is Thaler and Sunstein's ability to create a detailed and persuasive case for their take on economic decision-making. Nudge is not a book packed with original findings or data; instead it is a careful and systematic synthesis of decades of research into behavioral economics. The discipline challenges much conventional economic thought - which works on the basis that, overall, humans make rational decisions - by focusing instead on the 'irrational' cognitive biases that affect our decision making. These seemingly in-built biases mean that certain kinds of economic decision-making are predictably irrational. Thaler and Sunstein prove themselves experts at creating persuasive arguments and dealing effectively with counter-arguments. They conclude that if governments understand these cognitive biases, they can 'nudge' us into making better decisions for ourselves. Entertaining as well as smart, Nudge shows the full range of reasoning skills that go into making a persuasive argument.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Few people can claim to have had minds as fertile and creative as the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of the most influential political theorists of the modern age, he was also a composer, writer of opera, a novelist, and a memoirist.

Paperback. Condición: Good. Martin Bubers I and Thou argues that humans engage with the world in two ways, one necessary for existence and the other the source of the meaning of life. Bubers masterpiece is the basis of his religious philosophy of dialogue and among the most influential studies of the human condition in the 20th century.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Alasdair MacIntyre?s 1981 After Virtue was a ground-breaking contribution to modern moral philosophy. Dissatisfied with the major trends in the moral philosophy of his time, MacIntyre argued that modern moral discourse had no real rational basis. Instead, he suggested, if one wanted to build a rational theory for morality and moral actions, one would have to go all the way back to Aristotle. To build his arguments ? which are widely acknowledged to be as important as they are complex ? MacIntyre relies on two critical thinking skills above all others: evaluation and interpretation.The primary goal of evaluation is to judge the strength or weakness of arguments, asking how acceptable a given line of reasoning is, and how adequate it is to the situation. In After Virtue, MacIntyre applies incisive evaluation skills to major positions and figures in moral philosophy one after the other ? showing how and why Aristotle?s template remains a stronger way of considering moral questions. Throughout this process, MacIntyre also relies on his interpretative skills. As MacIntyre knows, clarifying meanings, questioning definitions, and laying down definitions of his key terms is as vital to advancing his arguments as it is to evaluating those of other philosophers.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. The United States has the world's largest prison population, with more than two million behind bars. Alexander says this is mainly due to America's 'war on drugs,' launched in 1982. In The New Jim Crow, she explains how this government initiative has led to America's black citizens being imprisoned on a colossal scale.…

Condición: Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condición: Good. Martin Bubers I and Thou argues that humans engage with the world in two ways, one necessary for existence and the other the source of the meaning of life. Bubers masterpiece is the basis of his religious philosophy of dialogue and among the most influential studies of the human condition in the 20th century.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Alasdair MacIntyre?s 1981 After Virtue was a ground-breaking contribution to modern moral philosophy. Dissatisfied with the major trends in the moral philosophy of his time, MacIntyre argued that modern moral discourse had no real rational basis. Instead, he suggested, if one wanted to build a rational theory for morality and moral actions, one would have to go all the way back to Aristotle. To build his arguments ? which are widely acknowledged to be as important as they are complex ? MacIntyre relies on two critical thinking skills above all others: evaluation and interpretation.The primary goal of evaluation is to judge the strength or weakness of arguments, asking how acceptable a given line of reasoning is, and how adequate it is to the situation. In After Virtue, MacIntyre applies incisive evaluation skills to major positions and figures in moral philosophy one after the other ? showing how and why Aristotle?s template remains a stronger way of considering moral questions. Throughout this process, MacIntyre also relies on his interpretative skills. As MacIntyre knows, clarifying meanings, questioning definitions, and laying down definitions of his key terms is as vital to advancing his arguments as it is to evaluating those of other philosophers.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Philip Zimbardo is fascinated by why people can behave in awful ways.

Paperback. Condición: Good. Philip E. Morrison moved to Kenya 25 years ago. As a lecturer at Moffat Bible College, he became passionate about equipping under-resourced pastors who are responsible for multiple congregations. As a result, he founded The Multi-Church Pastor Institute to mentor and train these pastors. He is pursuing a Doctor of Ministry from Africa International University and currently serves with Africa Inland Mission as a Theological Education Consultant. He is the author of five other books, including The Multi-Church Pastor, Questions Pastors Ask, and Conflict Resolution in the Church. Philip Morrison is a member of the Africa Inland Church in Kenya. Hankuri Tawus Gaya is passionate about raising up young godly leaders. For nine years he has served with the Nigeria International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, currently working as an area director. He holds an MDIV from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria and is the author of several other articles and booklets. He is married to his wife Faith and has two daughters. Hankuri Tawus Gaya is a member of Church of Christ In Nations.…

Paperback. Condición: new. Paperback. Ludwig Von Misess 1912 contribution to the theory of monetary policy and the current prevailing consensus in modern economic liberalism, The Theory of Money and Credit, was a milestone achievement. The authors familiarity with the historical literature on banking and credit allows him to present a coherent theoretical structure that links private exchange between individuals, business and banks to condition the markets affecting money and credit. Through its wider influence on liberal thinkers and politicians, the Theory of Money and Credit has become a classic reference for those seeking to understand the advance of economic liberalism since the 20th century. In this book, the authors familiarity with the historical literature on banking and credit allows him to present a coherent theoretical structure that links private exchange between individuals, business and banks to condition the markets affecting money and credit. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condición: Fine. Used book that is in almost brand-new condition. May contain a remainder mark. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condición: Good. Philip E. Morrison moved to Kenya 25 years ago. As a lecturer at Moffat Bible College, he became passionate about equipping under-resourced pastors who are responsible for multiple congregations. As a result, he founded The Multi-Church Pastor Institute to mentor and train these pastors. He is pursuing a Doctor of Ministry from Africa International University and currently serves with Africa Inland Mission as a Theological Education Consultant. He is the author of five other books, including The Multi-Church Pastor, Questions Pastors Ask, and Conflict Resolution in the Church. Philip Morrison is a member of the Africa Inland Church in Kenya. Hankuri Tawus Gaya is passionate about raising up young godly leaders. For nine years he has served with the Nigeria International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, currently working as an area director. He holds an MDIV from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria and is the author of several other articles and booklets. He is married to his wife Faith and has two daughters. Hankuri Tawus Gaya is a member of Church of Christ In Nations.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. 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. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condición: New.

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. First published in 1980, Competitive Strategy contradicted the accepted wisdom of the time that said firms should focus on expanding their market share. Instead, Porter claimed, they should analyze the five forces that mold the environment in which they compete: new entrants, substitute products, buyers, suppliers, and industry rivals.…

Condición: Very Good. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condición: New. 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.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Liquidated is a work of anthropology that treats an unusual, despised subculture - that of the Wall Street banker - much as anthropologists have traditionally treated remote 'savage' tribes. But using the techniques of ethnography, including interviews, analysis of daily lives, and fieldwork to investigate a modern western culture is not original; what sets Ho's work apart and gives it value is her mastery of the critical thinking skills of problem-solving and creative thinking to reconceptualize the way in which we understand the bankers' mindset. Ho's great achievement is to ask productive questions, most obviously in drawing a distinction between bankers' self-image as capitalist warriors, freeing up value for themselves and shareholders by increasing the liquidity of the assets they invest in, and the social consequences of what they do. As Ho points out, not only is Wall Street institutionally inclined to embrace risk, in order to maximise profit; it is also prone to assume that increased liquidity (most often achieved by breaking up and selling off the parts of a large corporation) is a good in itself, irrespective of the outcomes for the workers actually involved in these disposals. Considering alternative possibilities, and generating fresh solutions, Ho determines that the capitalist principles that underpin Wall Street are myths, not the expression of some natural economic law.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Ludwig Von Mises's 1912 contribution to the theory of monetary policy and the current prevailing consensus in modern economic liberalism, The Theory of Money and Credit, was a milestone achievement. The author's familiarity with the historical literature on banking and credit allows him to present a coherent theoretical structure that links private exchange between individuals, business and banks to condition the markets affecting money and credit. Through its wider influence on liberal thinkers and politicians, the Theory of Money and Credit has become a classic reference for those seeking to understand the advance of economic liberalism since the 20th century.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Theodore Levitt's 1960 article "Marketing Myopia" is a business classic that earned its author the nickname "the father of modern marketing". It is also a beautiful demonstration of the problem solving skills that are crucial in so many areas of life - in business and beyond. The problem facing Levitt was the same problem that has confronted business after business for hundreds of years: how best to deal with slowing growth and eventual decline. Levitt studied many business empires - the railroads, for instance - that at a certain point simply shrivelled up and shrank to almost nothing. How, he asked, could businesses avoid such failures?His approach and his solution comprise a concise demonstration of high-level problem solving at its best. Good problem solvers first identify what the problem is, then isolate the best methodology for solving it. And, as Levitt showed, a dose of creative thinking also helps. Levitt's insight was that falling sales are all about marketing, and marketing is about knowing your real business. The railroads misunderstood their real market: they weren't selling rail, they were selling transport. If they had understood that, they could have successfully taken advantage of new growth areas - truck haulage, for instance - rather than futilely scrabbling to sell rail to a saturated market.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy" is a cutting intervention in modern philosophy that shows the full power of good evaluative and analytical critical thinking skills. Though only 16 pages long, Anscombe's paper set out to do nothing less than reform the entire field of modern moral philosophy - something that could only be done by carefully examining the existing arguments of the giants of the field. To do this, she deployed the central skills of evaluation and analysis. In critical thinking, analysis helps understand the sequence and features of arguments: it asks what reasons these arguments produce, what implicit reasons and assumptions they rely on, what conclusions they arrive at. Evaluation involves judging whether or not the arguments are strong enough to sustain their conclusions: it asks how acceptable, adequate, and relevant the reasons given are, and whether or not the conclusions drawn from them are really valid. In "Modern Moral Philosophy," Anscombe dispassionately turns these skills on figures that have dominated moral philosophy since the 18th-century, revealing the underlying assumptions of their work, their weaknesses and strengths, and showing that in many ways the supposed differences between their arguments are actually negligible. A brilliantly incisive piece, "Modern Moral Philosophy" radically affected its field, remaining required - and controversial - reading today.…

Paperback. Condición: New. 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.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Michel Foucault is famous as one of the 20th-century's most innovative thinkers - and his work on Discipline and Punish was so original and offered models so useful to other scholars that the book now ranks among the most influential academic works ever published.Foucault's aim is to trace the way in which incarceration was transformed between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. What started as a spectacle, in which ritual punishments were focused on the prisoner's body, eventually became a matter of the private disciplining of a delinquent soul.Foucault's work is renowned for its original insights, and Discipline and Punish contains several of his most compelling observations. Much of the focus of the book is on making new connections between knowledge and power, leading Foucault to sketch out a new interpretation of the relationship between voir, savoir and pouvoir - or, 'to see is to know is to have power.' Foucault also dwells in fascinating detail on the true implications of a uniquely creative solution to the problems generated by incarcerating large numbers of criminals in a confined space - Jeremy Bentham's 'panopticon,' a prison constructed around a central tower from which hidden guards might - or might not - be monitoring any given prisoner at any given time. As Foucualt points out, the panopticon creates a prison in which inmates will discipline themselves, for fear of punishment, even when there are no guards present. He goes on to apply this insight to the manner in which all of us behave in the outside world - a world in which CCTV and speed cameras are explicitly designed to modify our behavior.Foucault's highly original vision of prisons also ties them to broader structures of power, allowing him to argue that all previous conceptions of prison are misleading, even wrong. For Foucault, the ultimate purpose of incarceration is neither to punish inmates, nor to reduce crime. It is to produce delinquency as a way of enabling the state to control and of structure crime.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Liquidated is a work of anthropology that treats an unusual, despised subculture - that of the Wall Street banker - much as anthropologists have traditionally treated remote 'savage' tribes. But using the techniques of ethnography, including interviews, analysis of daily lives, and fieldwork to investigate a modern western culture is not original; what sets Ho's work apart and gives it value is her mastery of the critical thinking skills of problem-solving and creative thinking to reconceptualize the way in which we understand the bankers' mindset. Ho's great achievement is to ask productive questions, most obviously in drawing a distinction between bankers' self-image as capitalist warriors, freeing up value for themselves and shareholders by increasing the liquidity of the assets they invest in, and the social consequences of what they do. As Ho points out, not only is Wall Street institutionally inclined to embrace risk, in order to maximise profit; it is also prone to assume that increased liquidity (most often achieved by breaking up and selling off the parts of a large corporation) is a good in itself, irrespective of the outcomes for the workers actually involved in these disposals. Considering alternative possibilities, and generating fresh solutions, Ho determines that the capitalist principles that underpin Wall Street are myths, not the expression of some natural economic law.…

Paperback. Condición: New. With his 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice, American psychologist Gordon Allport displays the crucial skill of reasoning, producing and organizing an argument that was persuasive enough to have a major impact not only in universities, but also on government policy. The question that Allport tackled was an old one: why are people so disposed to prejudice against those from other groups? Earlier psychologists had suggested a number of reasons, especially in the case of racial prejudice. Some had suggested that racism was a learned behaviour, conditioned by negative experiences of other races; others that there was an objective rationale to negative racial stereotypes. Allport, however, reasoned that prejudice is essentially a by-product of the necessary mental shortcuts the human brain uses to process the vast amount of information it takes in. Because our brains want to use as little effort as possible, they regularly fall back on simple stereotypes - which easily generate prejudice. Gathering strong evidence for this hypothesis, he reasoned, clearly and persuasively, that our natural cognitive approach is the most significant factor in accounting for prejudice. Going further still, Allport also reasoned that, once this was better understood, social scientists would be able to influence policy-makers to curb discrimination by law.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Aristotle remains one of the most celebrated thinkers of all time in large part thanks to his incisive critical thinking skills. In Politics, which can be considered one of the foundational books of the western political tradition, the focus is on problem-solving, and particularly on the generation and evaluation of alternative possibilities.Aristotle's aim, in Politics, is to determine how best to organize a society. He looks in turn at several different type of organization - kingship, oligarchy and the polity, or rule in the hands of many - and evaluates the arguments for each in turn. But he takes the exercise further than his predecessors had done. Having concluded that rule by the aristocracy would be preferable, since it would mean rule by citizens capable of taking decisions on behalf of the society as a whole, Aristotle subjects his solution to a further checking process, asking productive questions in order to make a sound decision between alternatives.Politics was ground-breaking in its approach. Unlike previous thinkers, Aristotle based all his ideas on a practical assessment of how they would play out in the real world. Ultimately, Aristotle argues, the problem of self-interest means that the adoption of a mixed constitution - one based on carefully considered laws which aims at a balance of power between the people and the elite - is most likely to bring eudaemonia (happiness). It's a conclusion firmly based on careful evaluation (not least the process of judging the adequacy of arguments) and the product of outstanding problem-solving skills.…

Paperback. Condición: New. Baruch Spinoza's Ethics is a dense masterpiece of sustained argumentative reasoning. It earned its place as one of the most important and influential books in Western philosophy by virtue of its uncompromisingly direct arguments about the nature of God, the universe, free will, and human morals.Though it remains one of the densest and most challenging texts in the entire canon of Western philosophy, Ethics is also famous for Spinoza's unique approach to ordering and constructing its arguments. As its full title - Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order - suggests, Spinoza decided to use the rigorous format of mathematical-style propositions to lay out his arguments, just as the Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid had used geometrical propositions to lay out the basic rules of geometry.In choosing such a systematic method, Spinoza's masterwork shows the crucial aspects of good reasoning skills being employed at the highest level. The key use of reasoning is the production of an argument that is well-organised, supports its conclusions and proceeds logically towards its end. Just as a mathematician might demonstrate a geometrical proof, Spinoza sought to lay out a comprehensive philosophy for human existence - an attempt that has influenced generations of philosophers since.…

Paperback. Condición: New. One criticism of history is that historians all too often study it in isolation, failing to take advantage of models and evidence from scholars in other disciplines. This is not a charge that can be laid at the door of Alfred Crosby. His book The Columbian Exchange not only incorporates the results of wide reading in the hard sciences, anthropology and geography, but also stands as one of the foundation stones of the study of environmental history. In this sense, Crosby's defining work is undoubtedly a fine example of the critical thinking skill of creativity; it comes up with new connections that explain the European success in colonizing the New World more as the product of biological catastrophe (in the shape of the introduction of new diseases) than of the actions of men, and posits that the most important consequences were not political - the establishment of new empires - but cultural and culinary; the population of China tripled, for example, as the result of the introduction of new world crops. Few new hypotheses have proved as stimulating or influential.…