Capitalism and its Critics offers an accessible account of major theories of capitalism from the industrial revolution to the present day. The book provides a comprehensive account of the economic and social thought of key theorists from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to David Harvey and Thomas Piketty. Capitalism has long been the subject of passionate debate, and today such contestations are perhaps more timely than ever. For its advocates, capitalism brings democracy and freedom and is the cornerstone of modernity and of progress. For its critics, capitalism is based on the exploitation of labour and is responsible for the destruction of the environment as well as colonialism. Whether capitalism survives the century, or whether an alternative social system emerges, may very well determine the fate of humanity. Capitalism and its Critics gives a comprehensive critical analysis of the most important theorists of capitalism, including Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Polanyi, F.A. Hayek, J.M. Keynes, David Harvey, and Thomas Piketty. The book discusses some of the main debates about capitalism and considers alternatives in the twenty-first century. The 12 chapters are loosely chronologically organised around the main approaches and historical phases in the history of capitalism. Central themes of the book are the ideas of capitalist crisis and of tensions between democracy and capitalism in the making of modernity. A highly readable, informative and engaging text, Capitalism and its Critics is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding capitalism and its alternatives.

Evolutionary Social Theory and Political Economy traces the origins, extension, marginalization and revival of evolutionary approaches to social theory from the Enlightenment through the beginning of the 21st century. It demonstrates how changes in understandings of social evolution corresponded to changes in definitions of Political Economy and how both reflected changes in the Philosophy of Science. This book is written for students and researchers alike in all the social sciences. Economists will benefit from understanding how ideas about evolution in Economics corresponded to ideas about evolution in other social sciences, and Social Scientists outside of Economics will benefit from understanding how Economics has related to their discipline.

Written under the shadow of the global financial crisis, this book charts the current shape of global finance and tries to explain why the crisis arose and what can be done about it. Economics alone cannot fully explain how global finance operates, and why it is so crisis prone. Global Finance offers a wider approach in three key ways, by:

• setting markets and financial market failure in a historical context
• bringing politics and culture back into the analysis of global finance
• drawing on the latest thinking by sociologists of economic life.

With a convincing argument for better regulation of markets, Robert Holton provides a fascinating insight into the volatile and often misunderstood world of global finance. This is a key text for undergraduate students of sociology, economics, business, and politics, as well as being an incisive, informative read for anyone with an interest in this topical issue.

This book presents a series of ontological investigations into an adequate theory of embodiment for the social sciences. Informed by a new realist philosophy of causal powers, it seeks to articulate a concept of dynamic embodiment, one that positions human body movement, and not just the body at the heart of theories of social action. It draws together several lines of thinking in contemporary social science: about the human body and its movements; adequate meta-theoretical explanations of agency and causality in human action; relations between moving and talking; skill and the formation of knowledge; metaphor, perception and the senses; movement literacy; the constitution of space and place, and narrative performance. This is an ontological inquiry that is richly grounded in, and supported by anthropological ethnographic evidence.

Using the work of Rom Harr, Roy Bhaskar, Charles Varela and Drid Williams this book applies causal powers theory to a revised ontology of personhood, and discusses why the adequate location of human agency is crucial for the social sciences. The breakthrough lies in fact that new realism affords us an account of embodied human agency as a generative causal power that is grounded in our corporeal materiality, thereby connecting natural/physical and cultural worlds.

Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory is compelling reading for students and academics of the social sciences, especially anthropologists and sociologists of the body, and those interested in new developments in critical realism.

This book examines the crossroads of quantum and critical approaches to International Relations and argues that these approaches share a common project of uncovering complexity and uncertainty. The "quantum turn" in International Relations theory has produced a number of interesting insights into the complex ways in which our assumptions about the physics of the world around us can limit our understanding of social life. While critique is possible within a Newtonian social science, core assumptions of separability and determinism of classical physics impose limits on what is imaginable. The author argues that by adopting a quantum imaginary, social theory can move beyond its Newtonian limits, and explore two methods for quantizing conceptual models-translation and application. This book is the first introductory book to quantum social theory ideas specifically intended for an audience of critical International Relations.

In a world of finite resources, expanding populations and widening structural inequalities, the ownership of things is increasingly contested. Not only are the commons being rapidly enclosed and privatized, but the very idea of what can be owned is expanding, generating conflicts over the ownership of resources, ideas, culture, people, and even parts of people. Understanding processes of ownership and appropriation is not only central to anthropological theorizing but also has major practical applications, for policy, legislative development and conflict resolution.
"Ownership and Appropriation" significantly extends anthropology's long-term concern with property by focusing on everyday notions and acts of owning and appropriating. The chapters document the relationship between ownership, subjectivities and personhood; they demonstrate the critical consequences of materiality and immateriality on what is owned; and they examine the social relations of property. By approaching ownership as social communication and negotiation, the text points to a more dynamic and processual understanding of property, ownership and appropriation.

Social Problems and Inequality explores integrated and root-cause-based explanations of complex social problems. Written in clear and understandable language, allowing it to be used for classroom purposes, it addresses the most fundamental principles of how humans, acting through social units, create, and eventually can remedy, social problems. With a central focus on the problem of inequality and the manner in which this is manifested in crime, social class and stratification, this book examines the key theoretical perspectives relevant to the study and solution of social problems, whilst drawing upon rich illustrations and case studies from the US and Europe to offer a thorough examination of the nature, common root causes and social remedies of social problems. Providing discussions of both theoretical approaches and concrete applications, Social Problems and Inequality investigates the sources of various prejudices and attitudes that contribute to social problems and the associated issues of globalization, economic greed and imperialism. Accessible in style and comprehensive in its coverage, this book will appeal to students and scholars of social problems across the social sciences.

"Although happiness is based upon individuals' subjective perception of their own situation, understanding the concept of happiness is important for forming policies in modern societies. Taking into account discussions from disciplines across the social sciences, this book explores varying notions of happiness and how these are applied to create a theoretical understanding of the concept. The book then goes on to demonstrate how a general theoretical concept of happiness can be used to add to our knowledge of central aspects of modern society, ranging from questions related to welfare state analysis, through to evaluating everyday life for individual people. In doing so, Happiness presents an up-to-date and applied account of how happiness is now widely used in economics, sociology, psychology and political science, whilst also exploring the relationship between happiness and public policy"--

'Manufactured' Masculinity should be considered essential reading for scholars in the humanities and social sciences at every level and in all parts of the academic world. It weaves together brilliantly the elements of the 'manufacture' of masculinity in the period world-famous 'public' school system for the privileged which serviced the largest empire, the world has ever known, at the zenith of its control and which has had a significant influence in the formation of the modern world. This authoritative study of the making of British imperial masculinity shines light on the period of Muscular Christianity, Social Darwinism and Militarism as meshed ideological instruments of both power and persuasion.

This magisterial study reveals the extraordinary and paramount influence of games fields as the 'machine tools' in an 'industrial process' with the schools as 'workshops' containing 'cultural conveyor-belts' for the production of robust, committed and confident servants of empire, and templates for imperial reproduction in imperial possessions. Mainly on efficient 'production belt' playing fields of the privileged minds were moulded, attitudes were constructed and bodies shaped - for imperial manhood. Earlier 'manliness' was metamorphosized, morality was redefined and militarism at the high point of imperial grandeur was an adjunct. Professor Mangan outlines this unique process of cultural conditioning with a unique range of evidence and analysis.

This book was published as a special double issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

This study sees 'mediation' as a way of understanding the relationship between internal and external conversation, which underpins how individuals are connected to society. The relationship between these aspects of conversation is crucial in allowing selves to achieve subjectively-defined 'balance' between inner and outer worlds.

Bringing together authors from two intellectual traditions that have, so far, generally developed independently of one another - critical theory and new materialism - this book addresses the fundamental differences and potential connections that exist between these two schools of thought. With a focus on some of the most pressing questions of contemporary philosophy and social theory - in particular, those concerning the status of long-standing and contested separations between matter and life, the biological and the symbolic, passivity and agency, affectivity and rationality - it shows that recent developments in both traditions point to important convergences between them and thus prepare the ground for a more direct confrontation and cross-fertilization. The first volume to promote a dialogue between critical theory and new materialism, this collection explores the implications for contemporary debates on ecology, gender, biopolitics, post-humanism, economics and aesthetics. As such, it will appeal to philosophers, social and political theorists, and sociologists with interests in contemporary critical theory and materialism.

This highly accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and its consequences. Exploring the insights of a wide range of critical theorists, this book argues that debates about globalization cannot be divorced from struggles for emancipation or from the contradictory realities of contemporary society. Clearly organized around thematic chapters designed to provoke student inquiry, the book demonstrates how the views of critical theorists are crucial to understanding the global processes shaping the world today.

In a series of interviews, this book explores the formative experiences of a generation of critical theorists whose work originated in the midst of what has been called 'the postmodern turn', including discussions of their views on the evolution of critical theory over the past 30 years and their assessment of contemporary politics.

Although numerous studies of religious rituals have been conducted by religious studies scholars, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists, it is rare to find a work that brings scholars from different disciplines together to discuss the similarities and differences in their research. This book represents contributions by leading scholars from several disciplines that show the diversity of approaches to religious rituals, while also providing cross-disciplinary perspectives on this topic.

The goals of the chapters are to consider where the field currently stands in understanding religious rituals and what novel ideas can improve our knowledge about these practices; and furnish innovative applications of theory by discussing particular examples which are drawn from the authors? fieldwork. The chapters cover Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Islamic rituals, thus providing a view of how ritual practices vary across the globe, but also how they share some important characteristics.

The Invisible Religion is a modern classic of social science. Its influence goes well beyond sociology as it continues to inspire research in such diverse fields as sociology of knowledge, ethnology, theology, sociology of religion, and religious studies. In this volume, the author endeavours to answer one of the most important questions regarding religion in modern times: Are Western societies indeed becoming more secular as they modernize? His surprising answer is still part of the ongoing debates about secularization as he argues that rather than a decline of religion, we are witnessing a shift from an older Church-centered form, to another invisible and still largely unexplored form of religion. Explaining why focusing only on Church when discussing religion is inadequate, this book presents a thorough case for reframing the question of the status of religion in modern life in a way that makes visible forms of religion hitherto unseen, and sketches some aspects of this new form. As such, it will appeal to sociologists with interests in social theory, religion, and the secularization thesis.

First published in 1976, this book is concerned with the nature of classification in the social sciences. Its thesis is that classifications are dependent upon and are derived from theoretical explanations. Classification is not a theoretically neutral typification or ordering of social forms. This is because objects classified a " societies, social institutions a " are not given to knowledge independently of the categories which construct them and because the categories of classification are themselves the products of theories.

One of the most puzzling problems of our time is society's changing attitude toward truth and lying. Are we experiencing the breaking down of our moral values as many ethicists claim or are we confronted with a new moral paradigm? Serban explores the new moral relativism within the context of the unprecedented social-political and technological advances of the last decades. With the classical values under siege, a new concept of right and wrong has emerged based on a blurred distinction between truth and falsehood. Many forms of lying are considered subjective truth. Political correctness and spinning are part of the social interaction promoted by lawyers, politicians, activist judges, media, among others.

Serban documents that man, in the process of pursuing his goals, tends to manipulate others. Adapting through deception, particularly in crisis, is part of our animal heritage. Our thought processes, protective of our emotions and self-image, are perfectly adapted for the task of lying. Historically, people have always lied, regardless of social-moral restraints and legal prohibitions. Man--to successfully compete in this rapidly changing world full of conflicts, duplicity, and half-truths--either have to learn the new rules of self-protection in the social game of manipulative interaction or become losers. Psychiatrists, sociologists, psychologists, social workers, legal professionals, all other students of human behavior and also general readers interested in understanding the dynamic of social deception will find the work of particular value.

--Timely case studies offer deep analyses of vexing global problems. --Shows how world-system analysis can diagnose global challenges in a way that transcend the limits of other social science approaches. --Ideal reading in courses on world-system analysis, political sociology, and globalization

This third volume in the series covers a variety of topics in the field.

Niklas Luhmann offers an accessible introduction to one of the most important sociologists of our time. It presents the key concepts within Luhmann's multifaceted theory of modern society, and compares them with the work of other key social theorists such as J?rgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, and Zygmunt Bauman.

The book pays particular attention to introducing and discussing Luhmann's original sociological systems theory. It presents a thorough investigation into the different phases of his oeuvre, through which both the shifting emphases as well as the continuities in his thinking are shown. The primary focus of this text is Luhmann's theory of modern society as being differentiated into a plethora of ?function systems? ? such as politics, law, and economy ? which operate according to their own distinct logics and which cannot interfere with one another. For Luhmann, this functional differentiation works as a bulwark against totalitarian rule, and as such is a key foundation of modern democracy. Furthermore, the book critically examines the implications of this functional differentiation for inclusion and exclusion dynamics, as well as for the understanding of power and politics.

This is a key text for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of areas including contemporary social theory, political sociology, and sociology.

First published in 1983, FranAois Perrouxa (TM)s A New Concept of Development analyses the major paradox of our era: the desire for progress and the mistrust of its consequences. The authors argues that the approach to the question of development may be the key to understanding both the present and what the future brings, representing a pattern which will seek to shape mana (TM)s potential to his designs.

By analysing the ideas and theories propounded by the economic approach the authora (TM)s aim is to clarify both the meaning and direction of research in development. A scientific, oriented economy and efficient strategies should and must be the two components of one and the same momentum, required to go beyond the perilous paradox of our era.

Conceived as a response to the economic naAvety and implicit metropolitan bias of many 1950s and 60s studies of a ~the sociology of developmenta (TM), this volume, first published in 1975, provides actual field studies and theoretical reviews to indicate the directions which a conceptually more adequate study of developing societies should take.

Much of the book reflects strongly the influence of Andre Gunder Frank, but the contributors adopt a critical attitude to his ideas, applying them in empirical situations within such African and American countries as Kenya, Guyana, Tanzania and Peru. Others pursue the lines of enquiry opened up by Latin American theories of economic a ~dependencya (TM) and by the new school of French economic anthropology.

First published in 1991 this text provides an incisive analysis of theories concerning the origins of economic inequality between nations. Central to the authora (TM)s investigation is the concept of underdevelopment, and a focus on successive Western a ~systems of conceptualisationa (TM) of the relationship between the west and the rest of the world. The first part of the book concerns the Marx/Engels theory of the Asiatic mode of production, and the anti-Imperialist reaction against Eurocentrisim initiated by the theoretical synthesis of J. A. Hobson. This is followed by an examination of the post-World War II era, particularly the evolution of development studies and the differing versions of dependency theory.

The author concludes with an analysis of the most recent reactions against economic imperialism and dependency theory, and concludes with an assessment of their implications for the further economic development of todaya (TM)s Third World.

Dr Prestona (TM)s book, first published in 1982, presents a critical history of development studies since the Second World War, linking the recent, neo-Marxist, debate with the whole tradition in the field, going back to the work of economists like Arthur Lewis.

He identifies a series of a ~schoolsa (TM) and evaluates their contribution, supplying in each case a careful analysis, informed by the sociology of knowledge, of the work of its leading theorists. His final assessment draws on the critical theory of Habermas, arguing that social theorising is essentially practical; a matter of the construction, criticism and comparative ranking of ideologies, and that theorists should therefore consider what it makes sense for them to do or say, given their circumstances and the problems they address.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Max Weber, central thinkers to the discussion of political legitimacy, represent two very different stages and forms of social theory: early modern political philosophy and classical sociology. In these studies, Dr Merquior describes and assesses their individual contributions to the understanding of the concept of political legitimacy. Dr Merquior compares Rousseau and Weber to a handful of other major theorists and highlights the contemporary prospects of the alternatives between democratic participation and bureaucratizm. This book was first published in 1980.