Social Theory Books

New and Published Books

1. The Social after Gabriel Tarde

   Debates and Assessments

   Edited by Matei Candea

   Series: CRESC

   The social sciences and humanities are now being swept by a Tardean revival, a rediscovery and reappraisal of the work of this truly unique thinker, for whom ‘everything is a society and every science a sociology’. Tarde is being brought forward as the misrecognised forerunner of a post-Durkheimian...

   Published February 5th 2012 by Routledge
2. Towards Relational Sociology

   By Nick Crossley

   Series: International Library of Sociology

   Towards Relational Sociology argues that social worlds comprise networks of interaction and relations. Crossley asserts that relations are lived trajectories of iterated interaction, built up through a history of interaction, but also entailing anticipation of future interaction. In addition, he...

   Published February 5th 2012 by Routledge
3. Contexts of Social Capital

   Social Networks in Markets, Communities and Families

   Edited by Ray-May Hsung, Nan Lin, Ronald L. Breiger

   Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology

   The concept of social capital refers to the ways in which people make use of their social networks in "getting ahead." Social capital isn’t just about the connections in networks, but fundamentally concerns the distribution of resources on the basis of exchanges. This volume focuses on how social...

   Published February 2nd 2012 by Routledge
4. Understanding the Social Dimension of Sustainability

   Edited by Jesse Dillard, Veronica Dujon, Mary C. King

   Series: Routledge Studies in Development and Society

   The imperative of the twenty-first century is sustainability: to raise the living standards of the world's poor and to achieve and maintain high levels of social health among the affluent nations while simultaneously reducing and reversing the environmental damage wrought by human activity....

   Published February 2nd 2012 by Routledge
5. Agency without Actors?

   New Approaches to Collective Action

   Edited by Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Birgit Peuker, Michael Schillmeier

   Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology

   The question of agency is a key issue in social theory and research. The discourse of human agency as an effect of social relations is deeply intertwined with the history of sociological thought. However, in most recent discussions the role of non-humans gains a substantial impact concerning agency...

   Published January 19th 2012 by Routledge
6. Beyond Relativism

   Raymond Boudon, Cognitive Rationality and Critical Realism

   By Cynthia Lins Hamlin

   Series: Routledge Studies in Critical Realism

   This book argues that critical realism offers the theory of cognitive rationality a real way of overcoming the limitations of methodological individualism by recognising both the agents' - and the social structure's - causal powers and liabilities. Cynthia Lins Hamlin persuasively argues that...

   Published January 19th 2012 by Routledge
7. Critical Realism and Composition Theory

   By Donald Judd

   Series: Routledge Studies in Critical Realism

   The field of composition theory has emerged as part of the intellectual turmoil and set of pedagogical debates which have beset higher education for the last four decades and is now revolutionizing the theory and praxis of higher education. This volume examines three of the dominant pedagogical...

   Published January 19th 2012 by Routledge
8. Social Theory Re-Wired

   New Connections to Classical and Contemporary Perspectives

   By Wesley Longhofer, Daniel Winchester

   Series: Contemporary Sociological Perspectives

   This social theory text combines the structure of a print reader with the flexibility of an interactive website. The reader includes original texts from classical and contemporary theorists as well as short synopses of key ideas and brief biographies of each theorist. The website will contain a...

   Published January 18th 2012 by Routledge
9. On Privacy

   By Annabelle Lever

   Series: Thinking in Action

   This book explores the Janus-faced features of privacy, and looks at their implications for the control of personal information, for sexual and reproductive freedom, and for democratic politics. It asks what, if anything, is wrong with asking women to get licenses in order to have children, given...

   Published January 12th 2012 by Routledge
10. Self-Realization and Justice

    A Liberal-Perfectionist Defense of the Right to Freedom from Employment

    By Julia Maskivker

    Series: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

    In this book, Maskivker argues that there ought to be a right not to participate in the paid economy in a new way; not by appealing to notions of fairness to competing conceptions of the good, but rather to a contentious (but defensible) normative ideal, namely, self-realization. In so doing, she...

    Published December 21st 2011 by Routledge