Product Description

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the core topics, theories and debates in modern social theory. Fourteen chapters have been written by leading specialists in the field, providing up-to-date guidance on the full sweep of the modern sociological imagination, from the legacies of the classical figures of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel and Parsons to the work of cutting-edge contemporary theorists. Separate chapters discuss functionalism and its critics, interpretive and interactionist theory, historical social theory, western Marxism, psychoanalytic social theory, structuralism and post-structuralism, structure and agency theory, feminist social theory, postmodernism and its critics, and theories about globalization. All chapters are supplied with questions for discussion, study boxes, guidance on further reading and useful website addresses. It is ideal for students of sociology and cultural studies pursuing foundational courses in the history and theory of social analysis, and is also accessible for the general reader.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #242479 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 410 pages

About the Author
Austin Harrington is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leeds. He has published three books: Art and Social Theory: Sociological Arguments in Aesthetics, Polity Press, 2004; Hermeneutic Dialogue and Social Science: A Critique of Gadamer and Habermas, Routledge, 2001 and The Protestant Ethic Debate: Max Weber's Replies to his Critics, 1907-1910, Liverpool University Press, 2001, edited with D. Chalcraft.

Customer Reviews

Excellent
This book is an excellent read, it doesn't use a lot of technical language and covers the basic ideas from many social theorists, including Goffman, Foucault, Freud, Marx, Mead and many more. I would definitely recommend this to anyone persuing a Sociology A Level or Degree. However, as the title states, it is ONLY an introduction, you will need to do a lot more reading around each topic to gain the desired results.