Essays from international contributors on the experiences of reading: what reading feels like, how it makes people feel, how people read, under what kinds of conditions, what drives people to read, and conversely, what gets individual and groups of readers stopped in their pursuit of the rewards of reading.
This book discusses the nature and significance of social problems, and considers the relationship between social problems and social justice. It provides an overview of some of the key problems currently facing society, and clearly and systematically demonstrates how these problems perpetuate social injustice, inequality and discrimination.
This book introduces students and educated general readers to thirteen key social theorists by way of examining a single, exemplary text by each author, ranging from Comte to Adorno. It answers the need for a book that helps students develop the skill to critically read theory. -- .
This book addresses some of the many social challenges created by migration flows over the past decades. The volume brings together research from three different fields: economics, sociology and political science.
Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer, Guns, Germs, and Steel attempts to answer why human history unfolded differently on different continents. Drawing on evidence from a diverse range of disciplines, Diamond argues that the varying rates of human development over the past 13,000 years have had little to do with genetic superiority.
Like Foucault's earlier works, The History of Sexuality (1976) is ground-breaking and controversial. His claim that sexuality is more a social concept than the product of biological instincts challenges the accepted idea that it was the rise of modernity and capitalism that resulted in repression of sexualities.
The Sociological Imagination provoked hostile reaction when it appeared for its hard-hitting attack on how sociology was practiced, and on several leading sociologists.
Durkheim's 1897 work is a powerful evidence-based study of why people take their own lives. In the late nineteenth century, it was generally accepted that each suicide was an individual phenomenon, caused by such personal factors as grief, loss, and financial problems.
"Black Skin, White Masks offers a radical analysis of the psychological effects of colonization on the colonized. Fanon witnessed the effects of colonization first hand both in his birthplace, Martinique, and again later in life when he worked as a psychiatrist in another French colony, Algeria.
Competitors have always existed in business, but what if it were possible to render your competition irrelevant? This is the critical question posed in Blue Ocean Strategy, which argues that the path to success of any company lies not in taking on potential competitors, but in the creation of "blue oceans" in uncontested market space.
Frantz Fanon's 1961 masterpiece is both a powerful analysis of the psychological effects of colonization and a rallying cry for violent uprising and independence.
MacLeod's 1987 work, ground-breaking for the way it combines field research with theory, follows the lives of two groups of young men from a low-income housing project in the Boston area to show how poor people who aspire to live the American Dream face many more obstacles than their middle-class counterparts.
In 1963's The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan challenged the vision 1950s America had of itself as a nation of happy housewives and contented families. After World War II, society had fostered the idea that women wanted to run a home and live through the achievements of a husband and children.
A guide to the three pivotal figures in the classical tradition. It explains the key ideas of these thinkers and situates them in their historical and philosophical contexts. It helps the student gain an immediate understanding of what is distinctive and relevant about these giants of sociology.
Winner of the 2008 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize this book presents a radical challenge to ideas of modernity in contemporary sociology. Critiquing Eurocentric accounts of modernity, this study provides a postcolonial analysis of the Renaissance, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
Bhambra outlines what 'Theory for a Global Age' might look like, offering this outline as a statement for consideration, contestation and discussion. Bhambra sets the agenda for a new social theory which not only engages with global intellectual currents, but is fundamentally reshaped by them.
Distracted is a gripping expos of this hyper-mobile, cyber-centric, attention-deficient life. Day by day, we are eroding our capacity for deep attention the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress.
New Age Travellers are a hybrid phenomenon: part youth subculture, part alternative lifestyle and part social movement. Their cultural politics has had an impact on many young people in Britain. This book describes the emergence and character of the travellers' way of life in the 1980s and 1990s.
Centrally the authors emphasise the re-traditionalisation involved in de-traditionalisation and the connectedness involved in individualised processes of relationship change. Reinventing Couples will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including sociology, social work and social policy.
Sociology in Pictures: Theories and Concepts is a fresh and exciting publication based on styles from graphic novels and comics. It introduces theories and concepts using entertaining and informative pictures drawn by a leading comic illustrator.
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 possibility of family life.
This book brings Brian Jackson and Dennis Marsden's pioneering Education and the Working Class from 1962 up to date for the 21st century and reveals what we can do to achieve a fairer education system.
In this manifesto, German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest of our contemporary mythologies, and the most pernicious.
From the writings of Fanon and W.E.B. DuBois to Ali G. and The Office, After Empire explores the plight of beleaguered multi-culture and defends it against the accusation of failure.
Sonia Blandford, CEO of award-winning charity Achievement for All, about the facing up to the realities of the white working class and how to address social mobility from the inside.
A critical history of sociology in Britain. The book examines the literary and scientific contributions to the origin of the discipline, and the challenges faced by the discipline at the dawn of a new century.
This book is a detailed, empirical investigation into the question of whether academic social research can compete with the commercial sector, with its new technologies and big data, in order to classify, profile, and understand us.
In `The Working Class: Poverty, education and alternative voices`, Ian Gilbert unites educators from across the UK and further afield to call on all those working in schools to adopt a more enlightened and empathetic approach to supporting children in challenging circumstances.
This edited volume explores significant themes in modern, global sociology, including inequality, structures of power, conceptions of justice and sustainable futures.
This book presents a rich and nuanced analysis of selfie culture. It shows how selfies gain their meanings, illustrates different selfie practices, explores how selfies make us feel and why they have the power to make us feel anything, and unpacks how selfie practices and selfie related norms have changed or might change in the future.
Everywhere anarchism is on the upswing as a political philosophy - everywhere, that is, except the academy. Anarchists repeatedly appeal to anthropologists for ideas about how society might be reorganized on a more egalitarian, less alienating basis. Anthropologists, terrified of being accused of romanticism, respond with silence...
Explores the historical experiences and needs out of which the new radicalism arose. Focussing on eighteenth-century Paris, a time and place in which a modern form of society was just coming into its own, this book shows how the ideal of authenticity - of a self that could organize the individual's energy and direct it toward his own happiness.
Branko Milanovic presents a bold account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Using vast data sets, he explains the forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations over time. He reveals who has been helped by globalization, who has been hurt, andwhat policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice.
While the authors identify areas of concern regarding scientists' low earnings, competition from Asia, and the declining number of academic positions, they conclude that science in the United States is not in decline. American culture is highly conducive to science, and educated workers with a range of skills will still be in demand in the future.
Dorling brings together new material alongside a selection of his most recent writing on inequality from publications including the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, New Statesman, Financial Times and the China People's Daily. He explores whether we have now reached `peak inequality' and concludes by predicting what the future holds for Britain.
Under present social conditions, neither social theorists nor political scientists can afford to ignore one another. This book is a clear, structured account of the relationship between politics and social theory, examining both the political content of social theory, and how social theory has illuminated our understanding of politics.