Social Theory

Few of us, amidst our daily chores and responsibilities, consider how mundane infrastructures-from electrical grids to sewage systems-have developed over millennia in ways that enable everything we cherish, from democracy to technological innovation to...

In this colletion of essays the eminent social scientist, Dr. P.C. Joshi, argues that Marxism needs to be extended beyond the traditional confines set by Lenin and Mao in order to remain relevant in societies in which individuals have freedom of...

Events in the world today appear to be increasingly uncontrollable and unknowable. Climate change, refugee crises and global pandemics seem to demonstrate the limits of human reason, science and technology. In light of this, the terms "tragedy"...

This special issue is animated by the necessary entanglement of theory and history, the cortical relationship between theory and practice, and the transboundary (i.e. international) relations that help to constitute systems of thought and practice. We...

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices...

Written by leading social scientists working in and across a variety of analytic traditions, this ambitious, insightful volume explores interpretation as a focal metaphor for understanding the body's influence, meaning, and matter in society. ...

This book explores and proposes original definitions of central terms in political sociology and social theory, including political culture, imaginary, ideology, and utopia, in a manner that renders the individual definitions consistent with one other as...

Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease explores the phenomenon of 'liminal politics': an open-ended 'state of exception' in which normal rules no longer apply, and things which were previously unimaginable become possible - even appearing remarkably...

A powerful theory of the symbolic embedded within a remarkable and original theory of practice is a nodal aspect of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who was a leading social thinker of our times (1930-2002). Against the backdrop of the significance of...

Mainstream notions of the "American Dream" usually revolve around the ownership of private property, a house of one's own. Yet for the past 400 years, a large number of Americans have dared to dream bigger and bolder, choosing to live in intentional...

From a small group of devout Puritan settlers, the USA ultimately became the richest, most powerful Empire in the history of the world. Yet it is now in a process of implosion and decay. This book, inspired by Frankfurt School Critical Theory, offers a...

In Rethinking Marxist Theories of Transition, Onur Acaroglu traces the concept of transition across the tracts of Classical and Western Marxism. Rarely directly invoked, transition between different societies appears as an imminent social reality, and a...

This book explores two public sector scandals in the UK, drawing on Max Weber's thought on 'the iron cage' to understand how these cases of patient-neglect in NHS hospitals and failures by police and social workers to address the organised sexual...

The Mobilities Paradox: A Critical Analysis asks how the mobilities paradigm, arguably one of the most influential theoretical innovations of the 21st century, holds up against the empirical realities of a deeply unequal world. Korstanje's provocative...

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary.This Research...

In this provocative and original monograph, Krier and Swart argue that NASCAR and the carnivalesque displays at Sturgis's mass motorcycle rallies reveal how spectator events of this scale have come to function as intensive sites of profit making in...

As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, the world faces extraordinary system-level challenges-from deep inequality and xenophobic nationalism to militarism and neofascism, from the refugee crisis and environmental degradation to...

Few concepts are as central to sociology as institutions. Yet, like so many sociological concepts, institutions remain vaguely defined. This book expands a foundational definition of the institution, one which locates them as the basic building blocks of...

Medical doctors driving taxis, architects selling beer on street corners, scientific institutes closed down amid rusting carcasses of industrial plantsthese images became common at the turn of the 21st century in many once modern civilized countries. In...

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz was an extraordinary figure on the Polish political scene at the turn of the 20th century. A Marxist and patriot, academic and politician, Kelles-Krauz was most known for his efforts to reconcile the needs of the nation with...

The Sociogony re-examines the social ontology of what Durkheim calls 'social facts' in the light of critical and progressive hostilities to the facticity of facts and the necessity of moral absolutes in the shift from bourgeois liberalism to a neoliberal...

How do we make sense of the rise of political strongmen like Trump and Erdogan, or the increase in hate crimes and terrorism? How can we understand Brexit and xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiments and policies? More importantly, what can we do to make it...

Sociologists A0/00mile Durkheim, Erving Goffman and Randall Collins broadly suppose that ritual is foundational for social life. By contrast, this book argues that ritual is merely surface, beneath which lie status and power, the behavioral dimensions...

Value is typically theorized from the frameworks of economic theory or of moral/ethical theory, but we need to instead think about value foremost as political. Alena Wolflink uncovers a tension in value discourses between material and aspirational life...

This book explores the shift in sociology away from the shared aspiration of the classical transition, of transcending partiality through the construction of a "science of society", in the face of challenges to the notion of objectivity. With the...

De-centering queer theory seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of bodies and sexuality derived from Eastern European Marxism. The book articulates a contrast between the concept of the productive body, which draws its epistemology...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9789388070348Author Ramin JahanbeglooFormat PaperbackPage Count 176Imprint Speaking Tiger BooksPublisher Speaking Tiger BooksWeight(grams) 129g

Technological advance affects almost all areas of human life. Rapid digitization, increased mobility, new biotechnologies, and nanotechnology deeply influence, amongst others, industrial production, entertainment, work, military affairs, and individual...

Postcolonial theory has mostly been confined to literary studies and the humanities, but it has been slowly making its way into social science. This is a welcome development but poses new challenges. How can postcolonial thought be most fruitfully...

In Theoretical Times, Steve Redhead describes the post-crash economic, environmental, political and cultural condition we live in today. As the rise of the international right - Donald Trump, Brexit, Marine Le Pen - swarms the globe, a new global battle...

This book explores the concept of the stranger as a 'modern' social form, identifying the differing conceptions of strangerhood presented in the literature since the publication of Georg Simmel's influential essay 'The Stranger', questioning the...

An analysis of the effects of moral debates on sociological research. Few academic disciplines are as contentious as sociology. Sociologists routinely turn on their peers with fierce criticisms not only of their empirical rigor and theoretical clarity...

Current debates about experts are often polarized and based on mistaken assumptions, with expertise either defended or denigrated. Making Sense of Expertise instead proposes a conceptual framework for the study of expertise in order to facilitate a more...

Winner, 2002 French Translation Prize for Nonfiction Murderous Consent details our implication in violence we do not directly inflict but in which we are structurally complicit: famines, civil wars, political repression in far-away places, and war, as...

When people are facing difficulties, they often feel the need for a confidant-a person to vent to or a sympathetic ear with whom to talk things through. How do they decide on whom to rely? In theory, the answer seems obvious: if the matter is personal,...

This book is an introductory guide to the work of Talcott Parsons, designed specifically for students and those new to his work. It offers a comprehensive guide to reading and understanding the development of Parsons' sociological ideas, placing them in...

A generation on the move, a country on the brink, and a young author's search to find out how we got here. Millennials and the Moments That Made Us is a cultural history of the United States, as seen through the eyes of the largest, most diverse, and...

This book explores how the Internet is connected to the global crisis of liberal democracy. Today, self-promotion is at the heart of many human relationships. The selfie is not just a social media gesture people love to hate. It is also a symbol of...

With contributions from authorities on four continents, this edited volume provides a comprehensive survey of the life and work of David Ricardo (1772-1823), a major contributor to the British classical school of political economy. After an editorial...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780812983425Author David BrooksFormat PaperbackPage Count 384Imprint Random House Trade PaperbacksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams)...