The pace of modern life is undoubtedly speeding up, yet this acceleration does not seem to have made us any happier or more content. If acceleration is the problem, then the solution, argues Hartmut Rosa in this major new work, lies in “resona…
Since the end of the Cold War, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding have risen to the top of the international agenda. The fourth edition of this hugely popular text explains the key concepts, charts the development of…
Mary Kaldor's New and Old Wars has fundamentally changed the way both scholars and policy-makers understand contemporary war and conflict. In the context of globalization, this path-breaking book has shown that what we think of as war - that is to s…
The concept of intersectionality has become a central topic in academic and activist circles alike. But what exactly does it mean, and why has it emerged as such a vital lens through which to explore how social inequalities of race, class, gender, s…
Climate change, natural disasters, and loss of biodiversity are all considered major environmental concerns for the international community both now and into the future. Each are damaging to the earth, but they also negatively impact human lives, es…
In 1760 no polity in the world was democratic in any way we would now recognize. In 1995 there were democratic states on every continent and in every region. The struggle to create, sustain, and entrench democratic political systems is one of the ce…
Human Rights is an introductory text that is both innovative and challenging. Its unique interdisciplinary approach invites students to think imaginatively and rigorously about one of the most important and influential political concepts of our time…
The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, moral…
A critical introduction to discourse analysis as it is practised in a variety of different disciplines today, from linguistics to sociology. The author shows how concern with the analysis of discourse can be combined with an interest in broader prob…
The days of the Other are over in this age of excessive communication, information and consumption. What used to be the Other, be it as friend, as Eros or as hell, is now indistinguishable from the self in our narcissistic desire to assimilate every…
Like fast food, fast science is quickly prepared, not particularly good and it clogs up the system. Efforts to tackle our most pressing issues, like global warming, have been stymied by conflict within the scientific community and mixed messages, sy…
Inequality in its many forms is becoming an ever greater problem in modern society. The revised edition of this popular book explains why it is so important to understand class and stratification, and how the tools used to analyse these divisions ca…
Geography is a subject which throughout its history has been dominated by men; men have undertaken the heroic explorations which form the mythology of its foundation, men have written most of its texts and, as many feminist geographers have remarked…
The rise of digital technology is transforming the world in which we live. Our digitalized societies demand new ways of thinking about the social, and this short book introduces readers to an approach that can deliver this: digital sociology. Neil S…
In this exciting new book, Carol Smart proposes a new way of understanding families and relationships. It is born out of frustration with commentators who proclaim the supposed decline of commitment, and even the decline of the possibility of family…
For more than a decade, Carol Smart has been at the forefront of debates about the sociology of the family. Yet she has become frustrated by the fixation of many commentators with the supposed decline of commitment, and even the decline of the possi…
For decades, the world’s governments have struggled to move from talk to action on climate. Many now hope that growing public concern will lead to greater policy ambition, but the most widely promoted strategy to address the climate crisis &nd…
This timely and engaging book argues that technoscientific advances are radically transforming the woman--machine relationship. However, it is feminist politics rather than the technologies themselves that make the difference. TechnoFeminism fuses t…
For much of the last half century, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has seemed the outlier in global peace. Today Iraq, Libya, Israel/Palestine, Yemen, and Syria are not just countries, but synonyms for prolonged and brutal wars. But why is M…
The first three editions of this bestselling book have established A Social History of the Media as a classic, providing a masterful overview of communication media and of the social and cultural contexts within which they emerged and evolved over t…
In this innovative volume, Maria Lucia Pallares--Burke examines the nature of the so--called a new historya . In conversation with nine leading scholars associated with the movement, Pallares--Burke investigates the new approaches to the writing of…
From events at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, to the recent trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, war crimes trials are an increasingly pervasive feature of the aftermath of conflict. In his new book, Law, War and Crime, Gerry Si…
Social movements play a central role in the scope and direction of social change. They were instrumental in the creation of the modern state and, today, are major forces in politics and culture. Environmentalism, gay rights, alterglobalization, and…
Our everyday lives are increasingly intertwined with psychiatry and discussions of mental health. Yet the dominant medical discipline of psychiatry remains surrounded by controversy. Is mental distress really an illness like any other, treatable by…
Violence is so much in the news today that we may find it hard to believe that it is less prevalent than it was in the past. But this is exactly what the distinguished historian Robert Muchembled argues in this major new work on the history of viole…
What is the relationship between persons and things? And how does the body transform this relationship? In this highly original new book, Roberto Esposito - one of Italy s leading political philosophers - considers these questions and shows that sta…
In the new edition of this widely praised text, Alan Aldridge examines the complex realities of religious belief, practice and institutions. Religion is a powerful and controversial force in the contemporary world, even in supposedly secular societi…
‘Empowering and elegiac’ Yanis Varoufakis, author of Another Now ‘Utterly inspiring’ Caroline Lucas, MP, Green Party ‘A masterpiece of measured rage and love’ Jonathan Porritt, author of Hope in Hell Capitalism is…
We have long since lost our faith in the idea that human beings could achieve human happiness in some future ideal state a state that Thomas More, writing five centuries ago, tied to a topos, a fixed place, a land, an island, a sovereign state under…
Hyper-capitalism and extreme identity politics are driving us to distraction. Both destroy the basis of a common life shared across ages and classes. The COVID-19 crisis could accelerate these tendencies further, or it could herald something more ho…
The present ecological mutation has organized the whole political landscape for the last thirty years. This could explain the deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation, and conversion of the dream of globalization into a nightm…
As an unprecedented global pandemic sweeps the planet, who better than the supercharged Slovenian philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek to uncover its deeper meanings, marvel at its mind-boggling paradoxes and speculate on the profundity of its consequences? We…
For decades, a secret army of tax attorneys, accountants and wealth managers has been developing into the shadowy Wealth Defence Industry. These ‘agents of inequality’ are paid millions to hide trillions for the richest 0.01%. In this bo…
‘Deep adaptation’ refers to the personal and collective changes that might help us to prepare for – and live with – a climate-influenced breakdown or collapse of our societies. It is a framework for responding to the terrifyi…
Any organization, no matter how stolid, may be unsettled by the news that a new boss is about to take over. Talk in the hallways increases, staff worry about their jobs, uncertainty grows. Even when the change has happened, problems emerge when the…
We inhabit a world of more than humans. For life to flourish, we must listen to the calls this world makes on us, and respond with care, sensitivity and judgement. That is what it means to correspond, to join our lives with those of the beings, matt…
This bold and important new book presents current and emerging thinking on the social dimensions of climate change. Using clear language and powerful examples, it introduces key concepts and frameworks for understanding the multifaceted connections…
Offers a systematic reconstruction of the theoretical foundations and framework of critical social theory.
The indispensable guide to understanding the world we make and the lives we lead. This thoroughly revised and updated ninth edition remains unrivalled in its vibrant, engaging and authoritative introduction to sociology. The authors provide a comman…
This is the first appearance in paper back of one of the major classics of contemporary Sociology. Studies in Ethnomethodology has inspired a wide range of important theoretical and empirical work in the social sciences and linguistics. It is one of…
Here, for the first time in English, is volume one of Jurgen Habermasa s long--awaited magnum opus: The Theory of Communicative Action. This pathbreaking work is guided by three interrelated concerns: (1) to develop a concept of communicative ration…
Untrammelled neoliberalism and the inexorable force of production have produced a 21st century crisis of community: a narcissistic cult of authenticity and mass turning-inward are among the pathologies engendered by it. We are individuals afloat in…
Existentialism: An Introduction has established itself as the most comprehensive and accessible book on the subject available. In this fully revised and expanded second edition, Kevin Aho draws on a wide range of existentialist thinkers from both th…
It is commonly assumed that capitalism has created an a-emotional world dominated by bureaucratic rationality; that economic behavior conflicts with intimate, authentic relationships; that the public and private spheres are irremediably opposed to e…
Employment relations in advanced, post-industrial democracies have become increasingly insecure and uncertain as the risks associated with work are being shifted from employers and governments to workers. Arne L. Kalleberg examines the impact of the…
The most prominent anxieties in our society today, Bauman shows, derive from the removal of security. The very pursuit of individual happiness corrupts and undermines those systems of authority needed for a stable life. This book builds upon Bauman'…
When Freud wrote his classic Civilization and its Discontents, he was concerned with repression. Modern civilization depends upon the constraint of impulse, the limiting of self expression. Today, in the time of modernity, Bauman argues, Freuda s an…
In his Critique of Cynical Reason, Peter Sloterdijk pursued an enlightenment of the Enlightenment in both its beginnings and the present. After God is dedicated to the theological enlightenment of theology. It ranges from the period when gods reigne…
This is the second of five volumes based on the lectures given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collège de France in the early 1980s under the title ‘General Sociology’. In these lectures, Bourdieu sets out to define and defend sociology as an…
The driving cultural force of that form of life we call ‘modern’ is the desire to make the world controllable. Yet it is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world – only then do we feel touched, mo…
Contrary to optimistic visions of a free internet for all, the problem of the ‘digital divide’ – the disparity between those with access to internet technology and those without – has persisted for close to twenty-five years.…
This inspiring and stimulating book confronts contemporary challenges facing social workers. Many of the forms of human, social and environmental degradation addressed arise from social problems that have persisted over time, such as social work s o…
