The biography of an idea: that many of the problems we face - from teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics and are capable of sudden and dramatic change due to their inherent volatility. The author explores the ramifications of this, offering a way to view the world.

A succinct and highly imaginative contribution to one of the great intellectual debates of our times.

In the 1930s, George Herbert Mead and other leading social scientists established the modern empirical analysis of social interaction and communication. However, they could not provide a comparably empirical analysis of human organization. This book includes theory that fills in the missing analysis of organizations.

In works such as The Test Drive , Stupidity and Crack Wars , Avital Ronell has perpetually raised powerful questions about how we think, what thinking does and how we fool ourselves about the troubled space between thought and action. This book focuses on Ronell's teaching and writing observing how Ronell reads and what comes from reading her.

A succinct and highly imaginative contribution to one of the great intellectual debates of our times.

A fresh assessment of cosmopolitanism in social and political thought which links cosmopolitan theory with critical social theory.

A fresh assessment of cosmopolitanism in social and political thought which links cosmopolitan theory with critical social theory.

Provides an undergraduate guide to the three pivotal figures in the classical tradition. This work explains the key ideas of these thinkers and situates them in their historical and philosophical contexts. It provides an understanding of what is distinctive and relevant about these giants of sociology.

Shapes a fresh language of social theory that allows people to embody their differences with a sense of dignity and self-worth, enabling them to come to terms with the complexities of their lived identities. This book recognises that we have to understand the networks of complex affiliations and belongings that shape identities.

Society consists of people sharply divided from one another, living different lives and identifying themselves in distinct ways. This book explores each of the social divisions. It includes three major chapters, on religion, poverty and elites, combined with research and teaching practices. It is designed for students studying social divisions.

This book traces the development of sociological theory, summarizing the work of its major thinkers, and articulating the models and principles they developed.

The author here argues that the study of love has overlooked its importance as a potential new strategy for human survival and that the domination of nature and other human groups is no longer appropriate.

Brings together Hitchens's reflections on the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and the state of the contemporary Left. This book includes a selection of commentaries on his work from his former leftist comrades and a set of exchanges between Hitchens and various left-leaning interlocutors (such as Noam Chomsky, Studs Terkel, and Katha Pollitt).

This accessible text introduces social theory as a set of flexible and practical concepts that can be used to reflect on and make sense of social behaviour. It encourages readers to critically assess social explanations and to construct their own as active theorists in their own right.

Here, a group of scholars explore the past, present and future of the social sciences. The report begins by exploring how social science was historically constructed as a form of knowledge and why it was divided into a specific set of standard disciplines between the late 18th century and 1945.

This accessible text introduces social theory as a set of flexible and practical concepts that can be used to reflect on and make sense of social behaviour. It encourages readers to critically assess social explanations and to construct their own as active theorists in their own right.

Professor Basil Bernstein, who died in September 2000, was one of the Institute of Education's most eminent scholars. In January 2001 the institute held a memorial event to celebrate his life and work. This volume is a record of the tributes made on that day.

This is a comprehensive survey and assessment of sociological theories of the relations between societies and their natural biophysical environment. It touches on and addresses the major perspectives, focal points and debates in environmental sociology.

Provides both major writings of sociology's key classical theorists and a theoretical and historical framework, with which to better understand the readings.

The classsic text for any student seeking to understand the three thinkers who established the basic framework of contemporary sociology.