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 example of the creative combination of a philosophical method (the dialectic) with historical and economic information to produce a new interpretation of history. Capitalism, thought 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 criticize the system. But the work also outlines the new communist society that Marx hoped would rise in its place, and it helped to inspire the rise of states that largely shaped the modern history of our planet. Today, after a century of conflict, Marx's analysis still offers valuable tools that help us analyze the modern world. Marx's belief that he had arrived at a scientific way of describing the present and predicting the future may not be shared by many of his modern interpreters. But his ability to connect things together in new ways is not in doubt - and nor is the influence of the new hypotheses that he generated as a result of so much careful analysis.

The impact of William James's 1890 The Principles of Psychology is such that he is commonly known as the father of his subject. Though psychology itself is a very different discipline in the 21st-century, James's influence continues to be felt - both within the field and beyond. At base, Principles was designed to be a textbook for what was then an emerging field: a summary and explanation of what was known at that point in time. As its continuing influence shows, though, it became far more - a success due in part to the strength of James's analytical skills and creative thinking. On the one hand, James was a masterful analyst, able to break down what was known in psychology, to trace how it fitted together, and, crucially, to point out the gaps in psychologists' knowledge. Beyond that, though, he was a creative thinker, who looked at things from different angles and proposed inventive solutions and hypotheses. Among his best known was an entirely new theory of emotion (the James-Lange theory), and the influential notion of the "stream of consciousness" - the latter of which has influenced generations of psychologists and artists alike.

Marcel Mauss's 1925 essay The Gift is an enduring classic of sociological and anthropological analysis by a thinker who is one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology. The Gift exploits Mauss's high-level analytical and interpretative skills to produce a brilliant investigation of the forms, meanings, and structures of gift-giving across a range of societies. Mauss, along with many others, had noted that in a wide range of societies - especially those without monetary exchange or legal structures - gift-giving and receiving was carried out according to strict customs and unwritten laws. What he sought to do in The Gift was to analyse the structures that governed how and when gifts were given, received, and reciprocated in order to grasp what implicit and unspoken reasons governed these structures. He also wanted to apply his interpretative skills to asking what such exchanges meant, in order to explore the implications his analysis might have for modern, western cultures. In Mauss's investigations, it became clear that gift-giving is, in many cultures, a crucial structural force, binding people together in a web of reciprocal commitments generated by the laws of gifting. Indeed, he concluded, gifts can be seen as the 'glue' of society..

C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel's 1990 The Core Competence of the Corporation helped redefine traditional ideas of management strategy. It did so by focusing companies on one of the key critical thinking skills: evaluation. In critical thinking, evaluation is all about judging the strengths and weaknesses of arguments - assessing their reasoning and the relevance or adequateness of the evidence they use. For Prahalad and Hamel, companies could gain a competitive edge by evaluating themselves: their own strengths and weaknesses. By sensitively evaluating core competencies - the collective knowledge inside the organization that distinguishes it from other corporations - they could target efforts and resources with strategic focus. For Prahalad and Hamel, managers need to be able to identify and evaluate their company's unique skill sets, and the technologies that distinguish them from others businesses. How well they then coordinate these elements defines a company's competitive strength and how quickly it can adapt to new challenges. As Prahalad and Hamel showed in their case studies, the critical thinking skill of evaluation - knowing what you do best, how well you do it, and how you might improve - is absolutely central to staying ahead of the crowd.

Marcel Mauss’s 1925 essay The Gift is an enduring classic of sociological and anthropological analysis by a thinker who is one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology.

The Gift exploits Mauss’s high-level analytical and interpretative skills to produce a brilliant investigation of the forms, meanings, and structures of gift-giving across a range of societies. Mauss, along with many others, had noted that in a wide range of societies – especially those without monetary exchange or legal structures – gift-giving and receiving was carried out according to strict customs and unwritten laws. What he sought to do in The Gift was to analyse the structures that governed how and when gifts were given, received, and reciprocated in order to grasp what implicit and unspoken reasons governed these structures. He also wanted to apply his interpretative skills to asking what such exchanges meant, in order to explore the implications his analysis might have for modern, western cultures. In Mauss’s investigations, it became clear that gift-giving is, in many cultures, a crucial structural force, binding people together in a web of reciprocal commitments generated by the laws of gifting. Indeed, he concluded, gifts can be seen as the ‘glue’ of society..

Marx’s Capital 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 example of the creative combination of a philosophical method (the dialectic) with historical and economic information to produce a new interpretation of history. Marx's belief that he had arrived at a scientific way of describing the present and predicting the future may not be shared by many of his modern interpreters. But his ability to connect things together in new ways is not in doubt – and nor is the influence of the new hypotheses that he generated as a result of so much careful analysis.

C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel’s 1990 The Core Competence of the Corporation helped redefine traditional ideas of management strategy. It did so by focusing companies on one of the key critical thinking skills: evaluation. In critical thinking, evaluation is all about judging the strengths and weaknesses of arguments – assessing their reasoning and the relevance or adequateness of the evidence they use. For Prahalad and Hamel, companies could gain a competitive edge by evaluating themselves: their own strengths and weaknesses. By sensitively evaluating core competencies – the collective knowledge inside the organization that distinguishes it from other corporations – they could target efforts and resources with strategic focus.

For Prahalad and Hamel, managers need to be able to identify and evaluate their company’s unique skill sets, and the technologies that distinguish them from others businesses. How well they then coordinate these elements defines a company’s competitive strength and how quickly it can adapt to new challenges. As Prahalad and Hamel showed in their case studies, the critical thinking skill of evaluation – knowing what you do best, how well you do it, and how you might improve – is absolutely central to staying ahead of the crowd.

The impact of William James’s 1890 The Principles of Psychology is such that he is commonly known as the father of his subject. Though psychology itself is a very different discipline in the 21st-century, James’s influence continues to be felt – both within the field and beyond. At base, Principles was designed to be a textbook for what was then an emerging field: a summary and explanation of what was known at that point in time. As its continuing influence shows, though, it became far more – a success due in part to the strength of James’s analytical skills and creative thinking. On the one hand, James was a masterful analyst, able to break down what was known in psychology, to trace how it fitted together, and, crucially, to point out the gaps in psychologists’ knowledge. Beyond that, though, he was a creative thinker, who looked at things from different angles and proposed inventive solutions and hypotheses. Among his best known was an entirely new theory of emotion (the James-Lange theory), and the influential notion of the “stream of consciousness” – the latter of which has influenced generations of psychologists and artists alike.