Mapping Social Theory (Paperback)

In this latest volume in the highly successful Mappings series, a panoramic but acutely critical balance-sheet of the key currents of social theory is drawn up. Drawing on some of the most profound and trenchant criticism from writers such as Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Goran Therborn, Erik Olin Wright, Perry Anderson, Peter Gowan, Peter Dews, Norman Geras, Robert Brenner, Sabina Lovibond, Gregor McClellan, Nicos Poulantzas, Chris Wickham, Kate Soper and others, the volume assesses the historical and sociological theories of both the classical tradition and more recent schools of thought such as critical theory, world-systems theory, neo-Weberianism, structuration theory and postmodernism.

Combining new studies with classic articles, and integrating thorough-analyses of individual thinkers -- Ulrich Beck, Pierre Bourdieu, Jon Elster, Michel Foucault, Ernest Gellner, Anthony Giddens, Jurgen Habermas, Michael Mann, Carl Schmitt, Theda Skocpol, Richard Rorty, Roberto Unger -- with synthetic considerations of themes such as essentialism, structure and agency, individualism and modernism, Mapping Social Theory provides the reader with a privileged entry-point into the debates that have shaped the way we think today.