General

Why have legislative initiatives occurred on such controversial issues as contraception and abortion at times when activist movements had demobilized and the public seemed indifferent? Why did the South - currently a region where anti-abortion sentiment...

Living and Dying with Cancer is a powerful and moving account of the experiences of those affected by one of the most common causes of death in the Western world. Through a series of individual narratives based on extensive interviews carried out by the...

Andrew Lakoff argues that a new 'pharmaceutical' way of thinking about and acting upon mental disorder is coming to reshape not only the field of psychiatry, but also our very notions of self. Drawing from a comprehensive ethnography of psychiatric...

In this book, Brian Forst takes a fresh perspective on the assessment of criminal justice policy, examining the prospect of assessing policies based on their impact on errors of justice: the error of failing to bring offenders to justice, on the one...

This is the first account of the health panic surrounding cellular phones that developed in the mid-1990s. Treating the issue as more 'social construction' than evident scientific problem, it tells the story of how this originally American anxiety...

What is it really like to die? Though our understanding about the biology of dying is complex and incomplete, greater complexity and diversity can be found in the study of what human beings encounter socially, psychologically and spiritually during the...

'The most important event in my life occurred before I was born,' one child of concentration camp survivors has observed. The Holocaust did not end with the liberation of survivors after the collapse of the Third Reich, for the legacy of their suffering...

Professional specialists, using market research and promotional campaigns, have come to dominate public communication. The modern public of the Enlightenment, based on free discussion, has, in Leon Mayhew's terms, been replaced by a 'New Public,' subject...

Professional specialists, using market research and promotional campaigns, have come to dominate public communication. The modern public of the Enlightenment, based on free discussion, has, in Leon Mayhew's terms, been replaced by a 'New Public,' subject...

This book challenges the myth that Americans' emphasis on personal fulfilment necessarily weakens commitment to the common good. Drawing on extensive participant-observation with a variety of environmentalist groups, Paul Lichterman argues that...

Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels...

This book examines almost two decades of research using the structural or network approach to political behaviour. Network analysis begins with the assumption that the most important elements of political power are the relationships of influence and...

Defining lies as statements that are intended to deceive, this book considers the contexts in which people tell lies, how they are detected and sometimes exposed, and the consequences for the liars themselves, their dupes, and the wider society. The...

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This is the first book on the general history of US sociological research. It provides systematic archival, documentary, and interview data which question conventional views on research methods, developing our understanding of both the history of social...

Marx's undeveloped ideas about how society presents a misleading appearance which distorts its members' understanding of it have been the subject of many conflicting interpretations. In this book John Torrance takes a fresh, un-Marxist approach to Marx's...

This book sets out a generative structuralist conception of general theoretical sociology; its philosophy, its problems, and its methods. The field is defined as a comprehensive research tradition with many intersecting subtraditions that share...

This analysis of the growth of welfare spending examines the relative impact of class and status groups versus demographic composition and political structures. Special attention is given to the role of the aged as representative of the importance of...

Diverging Pathways follows the careers of a British birth cohort into early adulthood, presenting a detailed picture of the family backgrounds and the school and early labour force achievements of the cohort. The study portrays how the social...

In this book, the author proposes an interesting approach to the study of one of the most central concepts in social analysis, that of social structure. He provides a critique of the leading models and argues that each is inadequate to the task of...

Until the late 1960s, most Western scholars studying the history, culture, social and political life and economy of Russia and the Soviet Union, paid scant attention to the participation and experience of women. The multifarious ways in which gender...

In all Western countries, people are leaving work earlier than ever before - at a time when their life expectancy keeps increasing. How has this paradoxical process been brought about? What is the impact of labour markets and social policy? And what will...

This book, first published in 1992, seeks an explanation of the pattern of sharp discrepancy of wage levels across the world-economy for work of comparable productivity. It explores how far such differences can be explained by the different structures of...

Those who analyze public opinion have long contended that the average citizen is incapable of recounting consistently even the most rudimentary facts about current politics; that the little the average person does know is taken strictly from what the...

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The Solidarity movement of the early 1980s not only triggered a transformation in Polish society, it forced a fundamental reconsideration of the nature of socialism throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Seen as one of the most important social...

Originally published in 1992, this book provides a detailed analysis of the economics of the Soviet urban household sector during the 1970s. It contains eight studies covering the size and distribution of incomes and wealth, the incidence and causes of...

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This case study of the structure of power and ruling-class domination in the heart of the sertao of Northeast Brazil is based upon six field trips over a period of fifteen years. Analysis of the political economy of Juazeiro, Bahia, and Petrolina,...

This book sets out a generative structuralist conception of general theoretical sociology; its philosophy, its problems, and its methods. The field is defined as a comprehensive research tradition with many intersecting subtraditions that share...

This 1989 volume presents a theory of capitalist collective action and a case study of the pre-World War II American coal industry to which the theory is applied. The author examines the irony of capitalist firms that do not want to compete with each...

Using a wealth of data collected in Israel, this study depicts a complete system in which art is created and evaluated - the scale of Israeli society allowing for a comprehensive and detailed description of all the agents involved in the production and...

Virtually all known human groups have devised and regularly used techniques for altering consciousness, among which alcohol and drugs are prominent. James B. Bakalar and Lester Grinspoon offer a provocative analysis of the philosophical and historical...

Jurgen Habermas is one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists in the world today. But the complexity and breadth of his thought make him often difficult to understand. In this book, Stephen White offers a clear, accessible, and reliable...

Research on women's roles in rural development has found that women's contribution to the rural economy is commonly underestimated and that women may find it difficult to benefit from the development process. Within this context, this book looks at the...

Over the last several decades, functional theory in the social sciences has fallen into disfavour. Alleged to be a static form of theory incapable of explaining social change, methodologically impotent and ideologically tainted, functionalism stands...

In all poor countries, malnutrition and infectious diseases are the major biological processes leading to child deaths, but the social, economic, and environmental determinants of the variations in these conditions in different societies are poorly...

This 1978 book addresses the way in which police unions had become increasingly militant and formed a significant political force, demanding better pay and conditions and a say in social and penal policy. In this study, Robert Reiner considers the...

In a world where many experience unprecedented levels of wellbeing, chronic poverty remains a major concern for many developing countries and the international community. Conventional frameworks for understanding development and poverty have focused on...

Militant Salafism is one of the most significant movements in politics today. Unfortunately its significance has not been matched by understanding. To begin to address this knowledge deficit this book argues that, rather than the largely unhelpful...