Books published by Macat International Limited

Advertisements for soap. The image of a lm star. We accept these common objects as a normal part of our life. But each also carries hidden messages that none of us even suspect - as Barthes demonstrated in his unique analysis of the signs that generate meanings and assumptions we all take for granted.

"In his highly influential 1996 book, Huntington offers a vision of a post-Cold War world in which conflict takes place not between competing ideologies but between cultures.

Published in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man argues that capitalist democracy is the final destination for all societies. Fukuyama believed democracy triumphed during the Cold War because it lacks the "fundamental contradictions" inherent in communism and satisfies our yearning for freedom and equality.

Classical economics suggests that market economies are self-correcting in times of recession or depression, and tend toward full employment and output. But English economist John Maynard Keynes disagrees. In his ground-breaking 1936 study The General Theory, Keynes argues that traditional economics has misunderstood the causes of unemployment.

The History of the Peloponnesian War is acknowledged as the first great work in the fields of history and political theory. It uses narrative, debate, and analysis to document the war between Athens and Sparta (431-404 BCE). But its importance lies less in the story than in the way Thucydides tells it.

In his ground-breaking 1936 study The General Theory, Keynes argues that traditional economics has misunderstood the causes of unemployment. Employment is not determined by the price of labor; it is directly linked to demand. Keynes believes market economies are by nature unstable, and so require government intervention.

What is justice? How should an individual and a society behave justly? And how do they learn how to do so? These are just some of the core questions explored in The Republic, considered by many to be Plato's most important work.

More than a classic work on the history and philosophy of science, Kuhn's 1962 book is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of the 20th century. Kuhn helped change the way everyone looks at science.

Rawls' 1971 text links the idea of social justice to a basic sense of fairness that recognizes human rights and freedoms. Controversially, though, it also accepts differences in the distribution of goods and services-as long as they benefit the worst-off in society.

Originally published in 1861, Mill's great work systematically details and defends the doctrine of utilitarianism. Arguing first that a "morally good" action is one that increases the general sum of happiness in the world, Mill then says that general principles of justice should be based on this idea.

As recently as the 1920s, the lack of great female writers was often considered evidence of women's inferiority. Virginia Woolf disagreed. Her 1929 essay argues that creativity is impossible without privacy and freedom from financial worries, and throughout history, women have had neither therefore, no tradition of great female writing existed.

Why do we attempt to justify decisions that are clearly irrational? The answer lies in "cognitive dissonance," the feeling of mental discomfort we experience when we hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

Maslow's 1943 essay established his idea of humanistic psychology as a "third force" in the field. While psychoanalysts sought to understand behaviour by uncovering subconscious desires and behaviourists through analysis of conditioned behaviours.

One of the most influential books on economics ever written, An Essay on the Principle of Population remains one of the most controversial, too.

Butler's 1990 work shook the foundations of feminist theory and changed the conversation about gender. While many thinkers already accepted that "gender" was a category constructed by society defined by one's genitalia, Butler went further and argued that gender is performative-it exists only in the acts that express it.

In Beyond God, Neitzsche explores what society might look like if we were brave enough to emerge fully from the shadow of the Christian God proposing that God is dead-and that "philosophers of the future" must construct a new morality to replace the Christian one.

Capitalism, thought Karl Marx, works by exploiting the working class. Their wages do not reflect the value of their labor. Marx concluded that capitalism would fail because of this contradiction at the heart of the capitalist system. He wrote Capital to give activists the theories and language they needed to criticise the system.

In his best selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, economist Thomas Piketty argues that capitalism has no tendency towards a fair distribution of wealth taking issue with the idea that inequality declines as capitalism matures.

More than two centuries after its initial publication in 1781, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason remains perhaps the most influential text in modern philosophy. Kant wanted metaphysicians to move away from their endless battles about whether or not human knowledge must conform to independently given objects.

Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples is unsurpassed as an overview of Arab history from the rise of Islam to the late twentieth century. Going far beyond political history, it provides a deep analysis of social, cultural and economic structures.

'Politics as a Vocation' examines what makes good political leaders and explores the effects of political action on modern societies. On one level, it summarizes the political scholarship of one of the founding fathers of social science. On another, it reflects practical concerns about the future of Germany after its defeat in World War I.

In The Age of Revolution, Eric Hobsbawm focuses on the tumultuous late 18th and early 19th centuries. He argues that the "dual revolutions" of the time -the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution - changed the way the whole world thought about politics and power, and fundamentally shaped the modern era.

Excited by the scientific breakthroughs of the day, David Hume set out to construct a science of the mind. 1748's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the result. A work that had a huge influence on great thinkers, including Kant, An Enquiry is Hume's examination of how we obtain information and form beliefs.

Gordon W. Allport's 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice not only helped mold the ways in which psychologists investigate prejudice - it also shaped US society as a whole, making a substantial contribution to the Civil Rights Movement and America's anti-discrimination and anti-segregation laws.

Though written more than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is still both widely read and very influential. Readers turn to it for its direct advice on the question of how to attain - and retain - power. Machiavelli's answer, in brief: use any means necessary to make sure the state survives.

Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) analyzes the ways in which excessive government planning can erode democracy. The work draws influential parallels between the totalitarianism of both left and right, questioning the central government control exerted by Western democracies.

The Second Sex caused uproar when it appeared in 1949. Simone de Beauvoir sets out groundbreaking ideas on what it meant to be a woman, charting the oppression of "the second sex." She argued that gender identity was shaped by upbringing in a world ruled by men, and her most startling thesis became a rallying cry for the feminist movement.

Du Bois's 1903 examination of the plight of African Americans is widely recognized as among the most important ever written on race and identity.

Democracy in America, published in 1835 and 1840, challenged conventional thinking about democracy when it first appeared and is still cited today for its in-depth analysis of what makes a successful democracy.

One of the most important strategy manuals ever published, Chinese general Sun Tzu's The Art of War has also been used as a guide to modern business, giving executives an insight into the vital importance of tactics and preparation.