"The controversial pundit dishes out and takes punishment in this anthology of rancorous essays by him and the leftist comrades he abandoned to embrace the invasion of Iraqa]There's red meat aplenty for pro- and anti- Hitchens readersa]"
--"Publishers Weekly"

aHitchensas style is so dazzling it is easy to forget that it is rooted in a solid belief in secularism, feminism, and reason. These are the core principles of the Left and we have no choice but to defend them. As they are assaulted by psychopathic Islamistsabroad and betrayed by empty headed phonies at home, it is good to know that Hitchens is on our side.a
--Nick Cohen, columnist, "The Observer"

aCottee and Cushman have produced not only a priceless collection of Christopher Hitchens's key writings over the past few years; they have also documented wonderfully the most essential characteristics of the post-9/11 Anglo-American left. Christopher Hitchens and His Critics is must reading for anybody interested in the big topics befalling our lives.a
--Andrei S. Markovits, University of Michigan

Christopher Hitchens--political journalist, cultural critic, public intellectual and self-described acontrariana--is one of the most controversial and prolific writers of his generation. His most recent book, "God is Not Great," was on the "New York Times" bestseller list in 2007 for months. Like his hero, George Orwell, Hitchens is a tireless opponent of all forms of cruelty, ideological dogma, religious superstition and intellectual obfuscation. Once a socialist, he now refers to himself as an aunaffiliated radical.a As a thinker, Hitchens is perhaps best viewed as apost-ideological, a in that his intellectual sourcesand solidarities are strikingly various (he is an admirer of both Leon Trotsky and Kingsley Amis) and cannot be located easily at any one point on the ideological spectrum. Since leaving Britain for the United States in 1981, Hitchensas thinking has moved in what some see as contradictory directions, but he remains an unapologetic and passionate defender of the Enlightenment values of secularism, democracy, free expression, and scientific inquiry.

The global turmoil of the recent past has provoked intense dispute and division among intellectuals, academics, and other commentators. Hitchensas writing during this time, particularly after 9/11, is an essential reference point for understanding the genesis and meaning of that turmoil--and the challenges that accompany it. This volume brings together Hitchensas most incisive reflections on the awar on terror, a the war in Iraq, and the state of the contemporary Left. It also includes a selection of critical commentaries on his work from his former leftist comrades, a set of exchanges between Hitchens and various left-leaning interlocutors (such as Studs Terkel, Norman Finkelstein, and Michael Kazin), and an introductory essay by the editors on the nature and significance of Hitchensas contribution to the world of ideas and public debate. In response, Hitchens provides an original afterword, written for this collection.

Whatever readers might think about Hitchens, he remains an intellectual force to be reckoned with. And there is no better place to encounter his current thinking than in this provocative volume.

View the Table of Contents
Read the Introduction

Read the Authors' Op-Ed on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

aSin No More is superbly written, moving across each topic with freshness and sensitivity.a
--Jonathan Simon, author of "Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear"

"In this elegant and nuanced account, Dombrink and Hillyard explore how the depth of America's commitment to liberty and individualism has co-existed oddly with the forceful anti-libertarianism of the religious right. Their analysis of the bedrock values that America cares most about has important implications beyond the specific issues the authors address, making this an important resource for anyone wishing to understand the evolution of the national conscience, and its influence upon law and politics."
--Roger Magnusson, author of "Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground"

aSin No More represents a brilliant interweaving of the complexities of economic interests, public opinion, court and legislative action. The authors demonstrate the impact of these forces in understanding the recent normalization of gambling and the steady progress in gay rights. They show there are also early signs of achieving death with dignity and freedom for stem cell research, but access to abortion is increasingly in jeopardy. This book is sure to have a major impact on debate, research and policy in these areas.a
--John F. Galliher, co-author of "The Criminology of Edwin Sutherland"

aDespite the intense culture wars and the ascendancy of religious and cultural conservatism over the past forty years, John Dombrink and Daniel Hillyarddemonstrate that there has also been a marked increase in tolerance for behavior long thought to be immoral. The process of change has been uneven and episodic, a process the authors term aproblematic normalization.a But there has been substantial change. The authorsa findings are counter-intuitive. But they are convincing. This is an important book, and it should find a wide audience.a
--Malcolm M. Feeley, co-author of "Judicial Policy Making and the Modern State"

Sin No More offers a vivid examination of some of the most morally and politically disputed issues of our time: abortion, gay rights, assisted suicide, stem cell research, and legalized gambling. These are moral values issues, all of which are hotly, sometimes violently, contested in America. The authors cover these issues in depth, looking at the nature of efforts to initiate reforms, to define constituencies, to mobilize resources, to frame debates, and to shape public opinion -- all in an effort to achieve social change, create, or re-write legislation. Of the issues under scrutiny only legalized gambling has managed to achieve widespread acceptance despite moral qualms from some.

Sin No More seeks to show what these laws and attitudes tell us about Americansa approach to law and morality, and about our changing conceptions of sin, crime and illegality. Running through each chapter is a central tension: that American attitudes and laws toward these victimless crimes are going through a process of normalization. Despite conservative rhetoric the authors argue that the tide is turning on each of these issues, with all moving toward acceptance, or decriminalization, in society. Each issue is at a different point interms of this acceptance, and each has traveled different roads to achieve their current status.

Knowledge And Global Power is a ground-breaking international study which examines how knowledge is produced, distributed and validated globally.

The former imperial nations – the rich countries of Europe and North America – still have a hegemonic position in the global knowledge economy. Fran Collyer, Raewyn Connell, João Maia and Robert Morrell, using interviews, databases and fieldwork, show how intellectual workers respond in three Southern tier countries, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. The study focuses on new, socially and politically important research fields: HIV/AIDS, climate change and gender studies.

The research demonstrates emphatically that ‘place matters’, shaping research, scholarship and knowledge itself. But it also shows that knowledge workers in the global South have room to move, setting agendas and forming local knowledge.

This original and ambitious work looks anew at a series of intellectual debates about the meaning of democracy. Clive Barnett engages with key thinkers in various traditions of democratic theory and demonstrates the importance of a geographical imagination in interpreting contemporary political change. Debates about radical democracy, Barnett argues, have become trapped around a set of oppositions between deliberative and agonistic theories - contrasting thinkers who promote the possibility of rational agreement and those who seek to unmask the role of power or violence or difference in shaping human affairs. While these debates are often framed in terms of consensus versus contestation, Barnett unpacks the assumptions about space and time that underlie different understandings of the sources of political conflict and shows how these differences reflect deeper philosophical commitments to theories of creative action or revived ontologies of "the political." Rather than developing ideal theories of democracy or models of proper politics, he argues that attention should turn toward the practices of claims-making through which political movements express experiences of injustice and make demands for recognition, redress, and re pair. By rethinking the spatial grammar of discussions of public space, democratic inclusion, and globalization, Barnett develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the crucial roles played by geographical processes in generating and processing contentious politics.

The demise of the newspaper has long been predicted. Yet newspapers continue to survive globally despite competition from radio, television, and now the Internet, because they serve core social functions in successful cultures. Initial chapters of this book provide an overview of the development of modern newspapers. Subsequent chapters examine particular societies and geographic regions to see what common traits exist among the uses and forms of newspapers and those artifacts that carry the name "newspaper" but do not meet the commonly accepted definition. The conclusion suggests that newspapers are of such core value to a successful society that a timely and easily accessible news product will succeed despite, or perhaps because of, changes in reading habits and technology.

The Psychosocial Imaginaries of Defence Nationalism interrogates the emergence of far-right nationalist 'defence leagues' in Australia and the UK. Throughout the book, Liam Gillespie refers to these groups as defence nationalists: that is, as nationalists who imagine themselves as defenders of the nation and therefore national subjects par excellence. Drawing on original research, psychoanalytic and psychosocial theory-and particularly the work of Jacques Lacan-the author explores the narratives, imaginaries and subjectivities that sustain these groups, as well as the narratives, imaginaries and subjectivities these groups sustain. He argues that unlike other nationalist groups, defence nationalists are not primarily concerned with realising their avowed political projects. Instead, they are concerned with constructing and then enjoying themselves as the nation's self-ordained defenders. This means that which threatens the nation can paradoxically have a fortifying effect upon defence nationalists, legitimising and securing both the way they see themselves, and the position they see themselves occupying with/in the nation. The Psychosocial Imaginaries of Defence Nationalism will be of interest to anyone concerned with critical theorisations of contemporary nationalism, as well as with the application of psychoanalytic and psychosocial theory to social, cultural and political analysis.

Dialogue has become a central theoretical concept in human and social sciences as well as in professions such as education, health, and psychotherapy. This 'dialogical turn' emphasises the importance of social relations and interaction to our behaviour and how we make sense of the world; hence the dialogical mind is the mind in interaction with others - with individuals, groups, institutions, and cultures in historical perspectives. Through a combination of rigorous theoretical work and empirical investigation, Markova presents an ethics of dialogicality as an alternative to the narrow perspective of individualism and cognitivism that has traditionally dominated the field of social psychology. The dialogical perspective, which focuses on interdependencies among the self and others, offers a powerful theoretical basis to comprehend, analyse, and discuss complex social issues. Markova considers the implications of dialogical epistemology both in daily life and in professional practices involving problems of communication, care, and therapy.

Brands and logos are all around us - from the clothes we wear and the objects we buy, to the advertisements which cover our cities and the celebrities created by the media. We regard the brand as a new phenomenon, something born with the consumer society, but branding was born with civilization, its earliest examples dating to the Roman Empire.Branding is now a growing industry, applied not only to commodities but to charities, cities, the worlds of sport and entertainment, even government initiatives. Such is the ubiquity and power of branding that it is increasingly taken as a sign of the commodification of everyday life and the rapacity of corporate power. Examining the brand in history, the growth of national and global brands, the changing approaches of the branding industry and the exploration of new spaces for advertising, The Rise of Brands analyses exactly how brands develop and operate in contemporary society.

This volume examines the rise of an emerging sport as a grassroots effort (or "new social movement"), arguing that the growth of non-normative sports movements occurs through two social processes: one driven primarily by product development, commercialization, and consumption, and another that relies upon public resources and grassroots efforts. Through the lens of disc golf, informed by the author's experience both playing and researching the sport, Joshua Woods here explores how non-normative sports development depends on the consistency of insider culture and ideology, as well as on how the movement navigates a broad field of market competition, government regulation, community characteristics, public opinion, traditional media, social media and technological change. Throughout, the author probes why some sports grow faster than others, examining cultural tendencies toward sport, individual choices to participate, and the various institutional forces at play.

This book presents a set theoretical approach to sociological research. It revisits existing sociological approaches and discusses their limitations, before suggesting an alternative. While the existing canonical approaches of Positivism, Conflictualism, and Pragmatism are based on biology, history, and physics, respectively, the set theoretical approach is based on mathematics. Utilising its philosophical exploration delineated by Alain Badiou, the book further translates his work into the field of social science. The result of this translation is termed Multiplitism, which evades the limiting contradictions of existing approaches. Drawing on the mathematical notion of 'set' and relating it to recent sociological turns such as the relational and the ontological, the book proposes a scale-relativity through which the researcher (as subject) and the researched (as object) are integrated. The book will be of interest to social scientists, particularly social theorists and advanced level students.

In this timely and important book, Professor Brad K. Blitz, a leading expert on post-conflict integration, statelessness, migration, development and human rights, reminds us how the concept of freedom of movement, and its relationship to migration, has received little comprehensive treatment among academics, even though it underpins what we expect as individuals living in liberal states. Yet, there are 214 million international migrants and 740 million internal migrants in the world today. It is all the more paradoxical therefore that there is no guarantee of the right of freedom of movement where most migration takes place against the backdrop of both official and unofficial controls. With strong theoretical underpinnings, and drawing from a range of philosophers, both ancient and modern, Professor Blitz, examines the legal foundations for the free movement of people, before undertaking a practical critique of recent free movement experiences in Spain, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Russia and Slovenia. This is a tour de force. A work of remarkable scholarship, prescience, and practical relevance, which deserves to be read by all on this much-neglected subject of freedom of movement.' - Satvinder Juss, King s College London, UK'An advance, both analytically and empirically, for migration studies. With a base in international law and political theory, Blitz admirably opens up the ambiguous question of freedom of movement in relation to the restrictions still imposed by national borders and sovereignty, and the difficulties migrants face turning movement into successful settlement. Focusing on Europe, and migration experiences internal and external to the EU, as well as within and across national boundaries, the book significantly challenges current immigration paradigms with a series of atypical and provocative case studies.' - Adrian Favell, Sciences Po, Paris, France Migration and Freedom is a thorough and revealing exploration of the complex relationship between mobility and citizenship in Europe. Brad Blitz draws upon European and international law, political theory, economics, history and contemporary studies of migration to provide an original account of the opportunities and challenges associated with the right to free movement in Europe and beyond. Integrating over 160 interviews with individuals in Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, the UK and Russia, this book provides a unique focus on both internal and inter-state mobility and a re-evaluation of the concept of freedom of movement. The author documents successful and unsuccessful settlement and establishment cases and records how both official and informal restrictions on individuals' mobility have effectively created new categories of citizenship and exclusion within Europe. This book is an original study aimed at academics, students and government officials interested in migration, international studies, public and social policy, and politics. Contents: 1. Migration and Freedom 2. Investigating Freedom of Movement 3. Freedom of Movement in Europe 4. Spanish Doctors in the United Kingdom 5. European Language Teachers in Italy 6. Displaced Serbs in Croatia 7. Internal Migrants in Russia 8. Discrimination and Immobility in Slovenia 9. Analysis 10. Conclusion Bibliography

Engaging with several emerging and interconnected approaches in the social sciences, including pragmatism, system theory, processual thinking and relational thinking, this book leverages John Dewey and Arthur Bentley's often misunderstood concept of trans-action to revisit and redefine our perceptions of social relations and social life. The contributors gathered here use trans-action in a more specific sense, showing why and how social scientists and philosophers might use the concept to better understand our social life and social problems. As the first collective sociological attempt to apply the concept of trans-action to contemporary social issues, this volume is a key reference for the growing audience of relational and processual thinkers in the social sciences and beyond.

This book explores three worlds shared by the humans in their collective experiences. It identifies and explores the world of commonsense, the world of religion, and the world of science as three essential dimensions of human experience. The book helps understand that humans can gain comfort and pleasure in commonsense, achieve meaning and purpose from religion, and attain truth and rationality through science. It actively applies theories to and develops theoretical explanations from different domains or situations of human existence. This book is of interest to theorists, researchers, instructors, and students across major academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

An anthropologist, folklorist, and literary critic besides being a marketing professor, Alf H. Walle takes a refreshingly interdisciplinary look at the impact of modern social thought upon marketing and social research. Tracing key ideas back to their intellectual roots, Walle shows how the evolution of social theory, and the controversies it has engendered, can and should transform the way marketers approach consumers. He provides a theoretic underpinning for qualitative consumer research and presents a lucid theoretical and methodological overview for qualitative methods in marketing, research that parallels what others, such as Shelby Hunt, have provided for scientific methods in marketing. His book is a provocative, thoughtful, and probing study of qualitative social theory and its important contributions to marketing and consumer research. It is of value to both practitioners and academics. Arguing that the social structural methods have been largely ignored, Walle rehabilitates this general method and compares it to poststructural alternatives.

Walle shows that to understand the evolution of modern social theory, one must come to grips with the work of three towering pioneers: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx, and that researchers must understand and appreciate the contributions and influence of pioneers in order to avoid the myopic vision of our own time. Praising Hegel's metaphor of cultures as living organisms and his forging of the concept we now call National Character, Walle points to Hegel as the pioneering social structuralist and as the man who, as a negative example, inspired the poststructuralists to action. Walle ends with a well reasoned analysis of poststructural thought in marketing-consumer research, and suggests that conflict theory--an alternative to poststructural methods that evolved from social structural roots--is often more appropriate than poststructural analysis in marketing and consumer research. Relating both conflict theory and poststructural analysis to the actual needs of marketing consumer researchers, "Exotic Visions in Marketing Theory and Practice" provides unique, practical insights for those who teach market research as well as practitioners who pursue it for a living.

Performing Intimacies with Hawthorne, Austen, Wharton, and George Eliot analyzes literary reproductions of everyday intimacies through a microsociological lens to demonstrate the value of reading microsocially. The text investigates the interplay between author, character, and reader and considers such concepts as face and moments of embarrassment to emphasize how art and life are inseparable. Drawing on narrative theory, the phenomenological approach, and macro approaches, Maya Higashi Wakana examines Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil," Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Wharton's Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this book provides new ways of reading the everyday in literature.

Critically exploring the presuppositions of contemporary social theory, this collection argues for a trans-civilizational dialogue and a deepening of the universe of intellectual discourse in order to transform sociology into a truly planetary conversation on the human condition. Focusing on perspectives from Asia, notably East Asia and India, it interrogates presuppositions in contemporary critical social theory about man, culture and society, and considers central themes such as knowledge and power, knowledge and liberation. The diverse contributions tackle key questions such the globalization of social theory, identity and society in east asia, as well as issues such as biopolitics, social welfare and eurocentrism. They also examine dialogues along multiple trajectories between social theorists from the Euro-American world and from the Asian universe, such as between Kant and Gandhi, Habermas and Sri Aurobindo, the Bildung tradition in Europe and the Confucian traditions. Arguing for a global comparative engagement and cross-cultural dialogue, this is a key read for all those interested in the future of social theory in the wake of globalization and the rise of the global south.

This book explores and provides an overview of the Norwegian psychologist Jan Smedslund's life work on Psycho-logic. His contributions to science have been radical not only in challenging the empirical foundation of psychology, but also in seeking to develop a viable alternative. This book brings together various reflections on his key contributions from the 1960s to the present day. The volume features three chapters by Jan Smedslund, offering his updated views on psychological science and psychotherapy. It also features contributions from several scholars that critically evaluates his legacy. His seminal ideas are discussed, revised and expanded upon and the questions raised are put in relevant historical and interdisciplinary context. Respect for Thought is a valuable resource for psychological researchers, historians of psychology, cultural psychologists, critical psychologists, theoretical psychologists, clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, social scientists, philosophers of psychology, and philosophers of science.

This book is grounded in psychosocial research that explores the complex intergenerational transmission of memories within families and the transgenerational social issues that form a part of those memories. The author demonstrates that the organising framework of moving back and forth between inter- and transgenerational processes is key to mapping those relationships leading to the ideas of generational companionship, a multigenerational self and intergenerational mentalisation. Drawing on sociological and psychoanalytic approaches, it provides a framework for thinking about continuity and discontinuity in the lives of individuals and in the longer sweep of the generations. The role and potential for a psychosocial approach in deep-level problem solving is addressed through chapters on psychotherapy and on psychosocial interventions. Social imagination in personal and social healing is a core theme, as is the study of the relationship between creative and destructive forces that play out in human life. The book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of psychosocial research and psychotherapy as well as in memory studies, history, genealogy and social theory.

Fashion is bound up with promoting the "new," concerned with constantly changing aesthetics. The favored styles or looks of a season arise out of the work of a vast range of different actors who collectively produce, select, distribute and promote the new ideals, before moving on next season. If fashion is defined, in part, by the incessant requirement to be "new," this requirement means aesthetic qualities are always in motion and, therefore, unstable. How, then, are fashionable commodities stabilized long enough for them to be calculated--i.e., selected, distributed and sold--by those critically placed inside the fashion system? Since there are few studies that actually examine the work that goes on inside the world of fashion we know little about these processes. "Fashion and the Cultural Economy" addresses this gap in our knowledge by examining how aesthetic products are defined, distributed and valued. It focuses attention on the work of some of the market agents, in particular model agents or "bookers" and fashion buyers, shaping the aesthetics inside their markets. In analyzing their work, Entwistle develops a theoretical framework for understanding the distinctive features of aesthetic marketplaces and the aesthetic calculations within them.

Norbert Elias has been described as a great sociologist and over recent years there has been a steady upsurge of interest in his work. Yet despite the fact that he was active for nearly sixty years from the 1920s to the 1960s it was only in the 1980s that English translations of his works became widely available and the importance of his contribution to the sociological endeavour was fully recognised in the English speaking world. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the key aspects of Elias's work and then applies an Eliasian approach to key topics in contemporary sociology such as race, class, gender, religion, epistemology and nationalism. The editors have brought together a distinguished group of international sociologists and this book will not only change the course of Elias studies but be a valuable resource for both students and scholars alike.