The most successful reader of its kind, A World of Ideas introduces first-year writing students to the thinkers and writers whose ideas have shaped civilization: for example, Niccolò Machiavelli on government, Elizabeth Cady Stanton on justice, and Sigmund Freud on the mind. Because students perceive these writers as important, they take the writing course seriously: they learn to read more attentively, think more critically, and write more effectively. No other composition reader offers a comparable collection of important readings along with the supportive apparatus students need to understand, analyze, and respond to them.