First published in 1978, this volume is addressed to the crisis prevailing in the social and cultural sciences. The authors explore the conflict between positivism and romanticism, between hard and soft sociological research methods, and between objectivity and subjectivity - conflicts that were particularly acute in sociology at the time of publication. All of the essays adopt the approach of 'symbolic realism' or 'cognitive aesthetics' to overcome the dualism in conventional sociological theory. This strategy of symbolic realism is a philosophical amalgam forged from findings in existential phenomenology, ordinary language philosophy and pragmatism. It establishes a legitimate basis for the application of aesthetic criteria to truth-seeking in the social sciences. The synthesis emergent from these essays suggests a paradigm with broad implications for all the human studies. Students of culture will find this volume a provocative point of departure for their own investigations.

A central aim of Social Movements: Critiques, Concepts, Case-Studies is to bring together classical, recent, and contemporary analyses of the social movement phenomenon. Analysis is represented in several variants of its discursive form: the expository essay, the critique, the general theory, the specific case study, the futuristic meditation. The book is divided into six sections - entitled, respectively, classical perspectives; disciplinary approaches; conceptual issues: debates and critiques; contemporary studies; the future of social movements; and a coda: social movements in sociological thought - each enclosing from one to four essays. The editor's concluding essay provides an original and critical summation of the place of social movements in past and present sociological thought.

If the postmodern condition is a dystopia characterized by alienation and despair, argues distinguished sociologist Stanford Lyman, postmodern epistemologies compound the problem by denigrating Enlightenment philosophies that still offer agency and hope to those who struggle to be free. In this, his sixth volume in the Studies in American Sociology series, Lyman examines this contradiction as it has shaped American discourses on race and community, asking why Gunnar Myrdal's "American Dilemma" is still unresolved; how Chinese workers have fared in the labor movement and in labor history; what searches for "the lost tribes of Israel" have meant socially and historically; how cinema has offered metaphors for social action but presented failed utopias on screen; and how we have not yet established a basic definition of "the good life". In each of these instances, Lyman seeks new routes in the quest for justice.

Social movements have shown themselves to be one of the most dramatic and effective forms of political action. America, founded as the result of a challenge to one kind of political order, has been, in part, recreated as a result of movements of collective protest.

Social movements continue to arise in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the present age, when such social movements abound, it is crucial to investigate the theoretical similarities and underpinnings of older and current collective protests. With chapters on AIDS, the Iranian revolution, the New Left, environmentalism, and many other subjects, as well as essays delineating classical and contemporary theories, Social Movements provides a well-rounded and provocative perspective on this most compelling form of political expression.

Social movements have shown themselves to be one of the most dramatic and effective forms of political action. America, founded as the result of a challenge to one kind of political order, has been, in part, recreated as a result of movements of collective protest.

Social movements continue to arise in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the present age, when such social movements abound, it is crucial to investigate the theoretical similarities and underpinnings of older and current collective protests. With chapters on AIDS, the Iranian revolution, the New Left, environmentalism, and many other subjects, as well as essays delineating classical and contemporary theories, Social Movements provides a well-rounded and provocative perspective on this most compelling form of political expression.

When Stanford M. Lyman authored The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil in 1978 it was hailed by Alasdair MacIntyre as "a book of absorbing interest and importance...[that] places us all in his debt." By Nelson Hart as "a masterful and thought-provoking book...[that] is the only scholarly treatment of sin that is so well-informed by the best of ancient through modern perspectives." By James A. Aho as a work whose "abstract hardly does justice to the scholarly and detailed analysis of sin." And by Harry Cohen as a "book...[that] stands as a beautiful illustration of what holistic, idiosyncratic, interdisciplinary, and creative thinking and writing can bring to bear on the age-old problem of society and evil." The American Sociological Association's section on the Sociology of the Emotions selected this book as one of the works that laid the foundations for the study of pride, lust, envy, and anger-basic sentiments embedded in the social process. For this revised and expanded edition Lyman has written a new chapter, "Sentiments, Sin, and Social Conflict: Toward a Sociology of the Emotions." The new edition will be a valuable work for courses in social psychology, ethics, deviance, and the sociology of morals and of religion.

In the fifth volume in the Studies in American Sociology Series, Stanford M. Lyman offers commentaries on and critiques of postmodernism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction, posing questions concerning theoretical and epistemological problems arising from what appears to be a "nouvelle vague." Postmodernism, poststructuralism, and deconstructionism are interrelated aspects of the newest theoretical development in sociology and the social sciences. This new wave of thought challenges virtually all paradigms currently in use. In this, his fifth volume in the Studies in American Sociology Series, Stanford M. Lyman offers commentaries on and critiques of this new perspective, posing questions concerning theoretical and epistemological problems arising from what appears to be a nouvelle vague. Among the basic themes and issues explored are the allegation that modernity has defaulted on the promise of the Enlightenment; the question of whether the rational basis for knowledge and action is still valid; the controversy over the place of metanarratives and macrosociological outlooks; and newer concerns over race, gender, sexual preferences, the self, and the "Other." Professor Lyman provides empirically based and historically specific analyses of the relation of the race question to the problem of otherness and to the legal construction of racial identity in American court proceedings. Focusing on the issues of citizenship affecting European, Middle Eastern, and Asian immigrants; African Americans; and the special cases of the Chinese and Native Americans, he relates major public problems to the modern as well as the postmodern perspectives on justice. The debate over assimilation and multiculturalism, the dynamics of gender-specific emotions as expressed in six decades of Hollywood films, and the postmodern approach to deviance are each examined. He also offers proposals for a social science attuned to, but critical of, postmodernism and poststructuralism. Such a sociology might offer a perspective that treats the drama of social relations in the routine as well as the remarkable aspects of everyday life. Professor Lyman provides not only a new understanding of postmodernism but also a program of how to proceed with respect to its challenges.

Focusing on the Cold War years, this monograph examines the processes, problems, and policies through which the Federal Republic of Germany was formed and admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The author compares the situation of Weimar Germany during its short-lived postwar decade with that of the Federal Republic by applying geopolitical concepts and theory, illustrating Germany's territorial uniqueness and how that special aspect of its place on the European continent influenced the nation's diplomacy in both eras. During the late 1940s and the 1950s, the problem presented by Germany to the other NATO allies was how to secure and maintain the Federal Republic's allegiance to the anticommunist alliance without eliminating the country's desire to be reunited with its Soviet-dominated eastern section. How both NATO and Germany managed to maintain themselves in a state of dynamic equilibrium throughout the era of the Cold War illustrates the concept of international organization called "cooptation", which Lyman helped to define and expand. The epilogue explores the larger issues that the case study illuminates: global space, national territorialization, collective identity, and ethnocentrism. Considering the current conflict in the Balkans as it relates to the new Germany and the role of NATO, this far-reaching book is especially relevant with its suggestions for a basic supranational sociology.