Listen free for 30 days
-
A Macat Analysis of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 39 mins
- Categories: Education & Learning, Education
People who bought this also bought...
-
A Macat Analysis of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice
- By: Filippo Diongi, Jeremy Kleidosty
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Issues of human rights and freedoms always inflame passions, and John Rawls's A Theory of Justice will do the same. Published in 1971, it 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.
-
A Macat Analysis of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government
- By: Jeremy Kleidosty, Ian Jackson
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First available in 1689, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government is considered one of the most important works ever written on the foundations of government. Published anonymously, it argues against the popular idea at the time that monarchs have a God-given right to rule. Instead Locke proposes that sovereignty - supreme authority - ultimately resides with the people.
-
A Macat Analysis of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism
- By: Patrick Tom, Sander Werkhoven
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
Profit Over People
- Neoliberalism & Global Order
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated?
-
-
Activism at its finest
- By Jim on 23-04-16
-
Hegel: Philosophy in an Hour
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Hegel in just one hour. With Hegel philosophy became very difficult indeed – even the great man himself conceded that ‘only one man understands me, and even he does not.’ His dialectical method produced the most grandiose metaphysical system known to humanity, and included absolutely everything, its most vital element being the dialectic of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
-
-
Self congratulatory nonsense
- By Paul Towlson on 17-10-19
-
A Macat Analysis of Edward Said's Orientalism
- By: Riley Quinn
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Western thinking about the Middle and Far East has been distorted by stereotype and inaccuracy. This argument lies at the center of Palestinian-American literary theorist Edward Said's groundbreaking book, Orientalism. Originally published in 1978, it cemented Said's reputation as the father of postcolonial studies.
-
A Macat Analysis of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice
- By: Filippo Diongi, Jeremy Kleidosty
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Issues of human rights and freedoms always inflame passions, and John Rawls's A Theory of Justice will do the same. Published in 1971, it 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.
-
A Macat Analysis of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government
- By: Jeremy Kleidosty, Ian Jackson
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First available in 1689, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government is considered one of the most important works ever written on the foundations of government. Published anonymously, it argues against the popular idea at the time that monarchs have a God-given right to rule. Instead Locke proposes that sovereignty - supreme authority - ultimately resides with the people.
-
A Macat Analysis of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism
- By: Patrick Tom, Sander Werkhoven
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
Profit Over People
- Neoliberalism & Global Order
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated?
-
-
Activism at its finest
- By Jim on 23-04-16
-
Hegel: Philosophy in an Hour
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Hegel in just one hour. With Hegel philosophy became very difficult indeed – even the great man himself conceded that ‘only one man understands me, and even he does not.’ His dialectical method produced the most grandiose metaphysical system known to humanity, and included absolutely everything, its most vital element being the dialectic of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
-
-
Self congratulatory nonsense
- By Paul Towlson on 17-10-19
-
A Macat Analysis of Edward Said's Orientalism
- By: Riley Quinn
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Western thinking about the Middle and Far East has been distorted by stereotype and inaccuracy. This argument lies at the center of Palestinian-American literary theorist Edward Said's groundbreaking book, Orientalism. Originally published in 1978, it cemented Said's reputation as the father of postcolonial studies.
-
A Macat Analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract
- By: James Hill
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Geneva-born thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau's famous work of political philosophy from 1762 is based on a give-and-take theory of the relation between individual freedom and social order: the social contract that gives the work its name. Rousseau thinks about the issue by starting with what is known as the state of nature, a lawless condition where people are free to do what they like, governed only by their own instinctive sense of justice. People are free, but they are also vulnerable to chaos.
-
A Macat Analysis of Charles P. Kindleberger's Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
- By: Nick Burton
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Charles P. Kindleberger's Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises was first published in 1978, the world was entering a new period of global economic turbulence. Established economists based their analyses on the assumption that investors act rationally, and these economists often communicated their ideas with dry, technical language. Kindleberger rebelled against convention. Using a more literary and descriptive style, he came up with a new view.
-
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
- By: John Maynard Keynes
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1936, Keynes’ ideas had evolved during the difficulties following World War 1 in Europe, and the US crash and the Depression of the 1920s-'30s and the misery of mass unemployment. He deplored the situation where a few individuals or companies stored massive wealth while vast numbers experienced poverty and insecurity (his alarm bells ring today!) and sought to promote initiatives where governments could intervene with social projects to keep money fluctuating.
-
-
Jargon and Vision
- By Amazon Customer on 16-02-19
-
23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism
- By: Ha-Joon Chang
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan.
-
-
Brilliant!
- By nev on 31-03-17
-
A Macat Analysis of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
- By: David Linden, Nick Broten
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek's 1944 work, The Road to Serfdom, analyzes the ways in which excessive government planning can erode democracy. Published while World War II still raged, the work draws influential parallels between the totalitarianism of both socialism and Nazism and increasing control exerted by Western democracies.
-
The Ministry of Truth
- The Biography of George Orwell's 1984
- By: Dorian Lynskey
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ministry of Truth by Dorian Lynskey is the first audiobook that fully examines the epochal and cultural event that is 1984 in all its aspects: its roots in the utopian and dystopian literature that preceded it; the personal experiences in wartime Britain that Orwell drew on as he struggled to finish his masterpiece in his dying days; and the political and cultural phenomena that the novel ignited at once upon publication and that, far from subsiding, have only grown over the decades. It explains how fiction history informs fiction and how fiction explains history.
-
-
Generally a good insight into the world of Orwell
- By Rex on 08-09-20
-
A Macat Analysis of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
- By: Sebastián G Guzmán, James Hill
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max Weber was the first to identify beliefs and practices that influenced economic behavior. He found Catholics generally less motivated to succeed in business than Protestants because of their religious belief that everyone could achieve salvation. The branch of Protestants known as Calvinists, on the other hand, believed God determined everyone's salvation status before birth. Nothing a person might do on earth could save a soul marked for damnation.
-
-
Straightforward and gets you thinking
- By Dave Cook on 22-07-17
-
Rousseau: Philosophy in an Hour
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 1 hr and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Rousseau in just one hour. In Rousseau we encounter a walking ego, a naked sensibility - his arguments are both deeply stirring and deeply inconsistent. Yet whilst his contemporaries Kant and Hume may have been superior academic philosophers, the sheer power of Rousseau’s ideas was unequalled in his time. It was he who encouraged the introduction of both liberty and irrationality into the public domain, lamenting how ‘man is born free but everywhere he is in chains’. This audiobook is an expert account of Rousseau’s life and philosophical ideas - entertainingly written and above all easy to listen to. Also included are selections from Rousseau’s work, suggested further reading, and chronologies that place Rousseau in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.
-
-
insightful
- By Eager on 19-04-16
-
A Macat Analysis of Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism
- By: Macat
- Narrated by: Macat
- Length: 1 hr and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his 1983 book Nations and Nationalism, British-Czech intellectual Ernest Gellner put forward a theory of nationalism, explaining that the concept of nation is not in fact an ancient notion, as we might first imagine. Rather, it is a modern idea born out of the seismic social and cultural shifts that industrialization brought to the Western world.
-
A Macat Analysis of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations
- By: John Collins
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than 200 years after Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, governments around the world continue to address many of the issues discussed in the book. The most powerful states in the world are still committed to international trade, but questions are repeatedly asked about the role of governments in the economy and the effectiveness of the free market.
-
A Macat Analysis of Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics
- By: Macat. .com
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics created a "scientific revolution" in international relations, starting two major debates. In the 1980s it defined the controversy between the neorealists, who believed that competition between states was inevitable, and the neoliberals, who believed that states could cooperate with each other. As the debate wound down with the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, a second more fundamental debate began.
-
A Macat Analysis of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty
- By: Ashleigh Campi, Lindsay Scorgie-Porter
- Narrated by: Macat.com
- Length: 1 hr and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Defining liberty as freedom from interference by state power or popular moral opinion, Mill justifies the individual's right to this liberty by focusing on the role self-development plays in human well-being. His vision of individual rights extends to include freedom of thought and emotion and the freedom to act together with others. Society should protect the development of individuality to aid both social progress and innovation.
Summary
First published in 1651, Leviathan drove important discussions about where kings get their authority to rule and what those kings must, in turn, do for their people. This is known as the "social contract".
Thomas Hobbes wrote the book while exiled from his native England following the English Civil War that unseated King Charles I. In the face of England's radical - if temporary - rejection of its monarchy, Hobbes wanted to explain why it was important to have a strong central government, which in his time meant having a sovereign at its head.
Asking the listener to imagine what society would be like without a state, Hobbes justifies why the people of a nation should pledge their allegiance to a government. He argues that society needs a state at its organizational heart, in politics, religion, the courts, and education. Otherwise there is no order, and "the war of all against all" will follow.
Leviathan remains central to discussions of political philosophy to this day.