Social Theory : A Historical Introduction

Alex Callinicos

ISBN 10: 0814715931 / ISBN 13: 9780814715932

Published by New York University Press Sep 1999, 1999

About this Item

Neuware - The eighteenth-century Enlightenment saw the birth of an era which sought legitimacy not from the past but from the future. No longer would human beings invoke the authority of tradition; instead, modern societies emerging in the West justified themselves by their success at increasing, through the application of scientific knowledge, human control over the world. Ever since this notion of modernity was formulated it has provoked intense debate.

Seller Inventory # 9780814715932

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Social Theory : A Historical Introduction
• Publisher: New York University Press Sep 1999
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814715931
• ISBN 13: 9780814715932
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 0D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 0 millimeters depth
• Weight: 703 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment saw the birth of an era which sought legitimacy not from the past but from the future. No longer would human beings invoke the authority of tradition; instead, modern societies emerging in the West justified themselves by their success at increasing, through the application of scientific knowledge, human control over the world. Ever since this notion of modernity was formulated it has provoked intense debate.
In this wide-ranging historical introduction to social theory, Alex Callinicos explores the controversies over modernity and examines the connections between social theory and modern philosophy, political economy and evolutionary biology. He offers clear and accesssible treatments of the thought of Montesquieu, Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, Maistre, Gobineau, Darwin, Spencer, Kautsky, Nietzsche, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Freud, Lukacs, Gramsci, Heidegger, Keynes, Hayek, Parsons, the Frankfurt School, Levi-Strauss, Althusser, Foucault, Habermas and Bourdieu, and concludes by surveying the state of contemporary social thought.
A remarkably comprehensive and lucid primer, Social Theoryis essential reading for students of politics, sociology and social and political thought.

About the Author

Alex Callinicos is professor of politics at the University of York and author of Making History, Against Postmodernism, The Revenge of History, and Theories and Narratives.