Now reissued, this classic series provides students with concise and readable introductions to the work, life and influence of the great sociological thinkers. These pocket-sized introductions are be ideal for both undergraduates and pre-university students alike, as well as for anyone with an interest in the thinkers who have shaped our time.
By Barry Smart
November 08, 2002
In investigating the major works of Michel Foucault, Barry Smart focuses on the analysis of the relations of power and knowledge and modes of objectification through which human beings are made subjects; and addresses controversial issues concerning the state and resistance to power. The ...
By Richard Jenkins
November 15, 2002
This short critical introduction to Pierre Bourdieu's thought is a model of clarity and insight. Where Bourdieu's own writings are often complex, even ambiguous, Richard Jenkins is direct, concise and to the point. He emphasizes Bourdieu's contributions to theory and methodology while also dealing ...
By William Pawlett
September 09, 2015
In this comprehensive and engaging study Georges Bataille’s central ideas – the sacred, community and eroticism – are explored in detail. Bataille’s project to understand social bonds and energies at their most fundamental level and to re-energise society by challenging individualism is ...
By Michael Pusey
February 25, 1988
First Published in 2004. Pusey's lucid introduction to Habermas enables students to get to grips with all aspects of Habermas's rewarding but sometimes difficult work....
By Richard Jenkins
March 21, 2003
This short critical introduction to Pierre Bourdieu's thought is a model of clarity and insight. Where Bourdieu's own writings are often complex, even ambiguous, Richard Jenkins is direct, concise and to the point. He emphasizes Bourdieu's contributions to theory and methodology while also dealing ...
By Peter Worsley
February 05, 2003
Karl Marx probably had more influence on the political course of the last century than any other social thinker. There are many different kinds of Marxism, and the Twentieth Century saw two huge Marxist states in total opposition to one another. In the West, Marxism has never presented a ...
By Frank Parkin
May 31, 2013
This study of Weber's sociology, written by an eminent authority, is a clear and illuminating discussion of the most important elements of Weber's thinking. The book concentrates on four main elements of Weber's work: his approach to sociological method, ethical neutrality and historical ...
By David Frisby
November 08, 2002
Until recently little of Simmel's work was available in translation and certain key texts were unknown outside Germany. David Frisby, the eminent Simmel scholar, provides not only an introduction to the major sociological writings of this important figure, but also an argument for a reconsideration...
By Anders Blok, Torben Elgaard Jensen
September 10, 2012
French sociologist and philosopher, Bruno Latour, is one of the most significant and creative thinkers of the last decades. Bruno Latour: Hybrid Thoughts in a Hybrid World is the first comprehensive and accessible English-language introduction to this multi-faceted work. The book focuses on core ...
By Christian Borch
May 02, 2011
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 Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, and ...
By William Pawlett
October 06, 2010
This uniquely engaging introduction to Jean Baudrillard’s controversial writings covers his entire career focusing on Baudrillard’s central, but little understood, notion of symbolic exchange. Through the clarification of this key term a very different Baudrillard emerges: not the nihilistic ...
By Greg Smith
October 31, 2006
Decades after his death, the figure of Erving Goffman (1922–82) continues to fascinate. Perhaps the best-known sociologist of the second half of the twentieth century, Goffman was an unquestionably significant thinker whose reputation extended well beyond his parent discipline. A host of concepts ...