Knowledge and the Social Sciences. Theory, Method, Practice. The Open University.

Trade Paperback. This book looks at the role of the social sciences in explaining and exploring the explosion of knowledge in the contemporary world. Its stating point is the claim that all forms of knowledge, including the social sciences, must be understood in their social context. It argues that the social sciences both describe and transform what they study and it introduces students to some essential key concepts and arguments. In a radical and practical introduction to w3ays of thinking and knowing in the social sciences this text investigates the origins and consequences of different types of knowledge in areas of social change in both everyday thinking and more academic fields - medical science, religious belief systems, and the environment and political responses to environmental change. These issues are explored in the context of the emergence of what has been called the 'knowledge society; in which the proliferation of new sources of knowledge, which are transmitted at speed across the globe, has been accompanied by a decline in trust in tradtitional forms of authority and expert knowledge. Illustrated. 162 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.).…