Approaching Great Ideas: Critical Readings for College Writers introduces you to some of history's most influential thinkers--people such as Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Darwin, Adam Smith, Madison, Wollstonecraft, and more modern writers such as Carnegie, Gilman, Whitehead, Galbraith, Sacks, Sen, Kaku, Warren, hooks, West, Ackerman, and Zakaria. Their writings address the foundations of democracy and human rights, freedom and Justice, science and nature, wealth and poverty, and ethics and morality, the big ideas that are still alive and debated in the world today. Throughout Approaching Great Ideas, advice about reading critically and writing critically provides you with the help you need to approach, understand, and engage with the great ideas that truly matter.