International Studies

Seventeenth-century French writer René Descartes, one of the fathers of philosophy, imagined the mind and body as two separate entities that combine to form a human being. This concept came to be called "mind-body dualism." Ryle set about ridiculing Descartes's idea of, as he put it, a "ghost in the machine" stating that it was "entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle...not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind."

Arguing first that what might be termed 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. Therefore, in life, there is no conflict between what is just and what is morally right. Mill published Utilitarianism toward the end of a lifetime spent as a moral philosopher, political activist, and social reformer.

In 1963's The Feminine Mystique, she identified "the problem that has no name" afflicting women pressured to devote themselves to domestic life. After World War II, society fostered the idea that women wanted different things from men - namely, to run homes and live through the achievements of their husbands and children. In reality, rigid gender roles left housewives frustrated and depressed and caused tensions both in their marriages and in how couples raised their children.

Because the potential returns appear to be greater in poorer countries than in the developed world, modern economic theory implies that rich countries should continually invest in poor countries until returns balance out. In fact, this doesn't happen. Economist Robert E. Lucas Jr. asks why in his groundbreaking 1990 article, "Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?" The question has become known as the Lucas paradox. Lucas analyzes this, focusing especially on the role of human capital.

Philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a key text in the development of what we now know as feminism. Written in the atmosphere created by the French Revolution, which made radical change seem possible, Wollstonecraft's work challenges the idea that society's oppression of women is entirely natural. While her male contemporaries happily argued for the fundamental freedoms of all men, few were interested in extending these revolutionary rights to women.

Note: This is a summary and analysis of the book and not the original book. With 1962's Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, Philippe Ariès didn't just produce the first history of childhood. He also helped popularize the idea that history should focus on ordinary people. Studying the demographic and cultural evolution of modern society was his life's work, and this book was his most significant contribution.

The ideas set out by American international relations expert Robert O. Keohane in 1984's After Hegemony have had a huge impact on policy debates over the last three decades, both in political circles and in academia. Hegemony means the social, cultural, ideological or economic influence of one dominant group. Contemplating a post-Cold War world half a decade before the Berlin Wall fell, Keohane asks if international cooperation can survive in the absence of a single superpower.

In her 1983 book, Natalie Zemon Davis, a historian with a special interest in gender studies, examines the role of Martin Guerre's wife Bertrande in their fraudulent marriage. Davis argues that Bertrande plays a key part in the deceit and readily goes along with it. Her book helped spur a shift in the way historians viewed past events generally, and the role of women in a period where documentary evidence was lacking. She daringly used her imagination to reinterpret the story.

The emergence of China as a major player on the international stage is one of the most significant developments in contemporary geopolitics - the study of the effects of geography (both human and physical) on international relations. Kang's call for understanding of and engagement with China, rather than containment and confrontation, makes China Rising a "must-listen" for anyone interested in international politics.

Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi's 1990 work, A General Theory of Crime, assessed contemporary work in criminology, while also introducing a new, comprehensive theory of crime. At the time, researchers tended to focus on environmental factors that led to crime, not on the criminals themselves. Additionally, crime researchers came from different disciplines and inclined towards thinking about crime only from their particular perspective. This meant ideas about what caused crime, and how to prevent it, were often in conflict.

Do people always act rationally and in their own best interests? US economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein did not believe so, and were convinced that psychological factors often stopped people from making the best decisions. Their 2008 work Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness argues that governments should "nudge" citizens to make better choices in all sorts of areas, from eating habits, to health, to financial planning.

Before Bernard Bailyn published The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution in 1967, it was generally believed that the Revolution was driven both by social conflict between colonial settlers and the ruling British government, and by differences between classes in American society. Bailyn had a different view. He said that it was radical ideas that fired the American Revolution, and that the Revolution was above all else an ideological, constitutional, and political struggle.

Social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard wrote Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande after 20 months' fieldwork with the Azande people of the South Sudan. It became the founding text in the anthropology of witchcraft, and has been hailed as a classic. Although Witchcraft had little impact when it first appeared in 1937, its popularity grew after World War II. Alongside his subsequent work on the Nuer people, Witchcraft established Evans-Pritchard's reputation as an important anthropologist.

In The Age of Revolution, renowned British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm focuses on the historical period from the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th. He concludes 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.

World Order draws together Henry Kissinger's thinking on how we make sense of the world politically. Kissinger identifies four principal competing methods by which order has been and is still sought. Those four conceptions are European, Chinese, Islamic, and American. None of these has been accepted as dominant. Kissinger asks whether a new, universal world order can be developed today.

The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 offers a thorough account of the emergence of the antislavery movement in Britain and the United States. But what makes the work unique is the way it explores and unpicks the complex relationships between changes in our understanding of what is moral, the impact of political action, and its effect on social change.

Its arguments would go on to shape global economics and influence world leaders in the late 20th century, but Capitalism and Freedom was largely ignored when it was first published in 1962. The first work written for the general public by American economist Milton Friedman, the book argues that a free market with little government interference is the best way to run society.

"Common Sense" was published in 1776, at a time when America, then a colony of Great Britain, was teetering on the brink of war. It was an immediate success, a best seller, and was credited with galvanizing the people of America and George Washington's army. Paine's approach followed a path blazed by earlier thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, though he radicalized both their positions. For Paine, British rule in America amounted to little more than tyranny.

A winner of the 1992 Bancroft Prize, Nature's Metropolis broke new ground in the burgeoning field of environmental history, while also adding weight to both urban and Western history. Before its publication in 1991, historians generally treated urban and rural areas as distinct from one another, each following separate lines of development and maturity. Using Chicago and its surrounding areas as a model, Cronon's book looks to disprove this idea.

In Philosophical Investigations, the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein presents a radical approach to problems in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. In fact, he sets out a radically new conception of philosophy itself. Published in 1953, two years after Wittgenstein's death, many still consider it one of the finest works of 20th century philosophy.