Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings / Edition 6

by Charles Lemert

Overview

This book provides an illuminating introduction to a collection of readings on social theory and provides an overview of the socio-historical context and delineation of key thinkers and texts. It includes a new section exploring social theory at the limits of the social.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813350028
Publisher:	Westview Press
Publication date:	08/02/2016
Edition description:	Sixth Edition
Pages:	568
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Charles Lemert is University Professor and Andrus Professor of Social Theory Emeritus at Wesleyan University. Among his books are The Structural Lie: Small Clues to Global Things (2011), Why Niebuhr Matters (2011), Uncertain Worlds: World-Systems Analysis in Changing Times (2013, with Immanuel Wallerstein and Carlos Aguirre Rojas), and Globalization: Introduction to the End of the Known World (2015). He is at work on The Uncertain Future of Capitalism (2021, with Kristin Plys) and, among other books, Uncertainties of Time: The Past and Future TimeSpace (with Immanuel Wallerstein, posthumously).

Table of Contents

Part 1. 1690-1919, Modernity’s Classical Age

Social Foundations of Modern Democracy

The Unthinkable Two Sides of Society

Split Lives in the Modern World

Part 2. 1919-1945, Social Theories and World Conflict

Action and Knowledge in a Troubled World

Unavoidable Dilemmas

Part 3. 1945-1964, The Golden Moment

The Golden Age

Doubts and Reservations

Others Object

Part 4. 1963-1979, Will the Center Hold?

Experiments in Renewal and Reconstruction

Part 5. 1969-2001, After Modernity

The Idea of the Postmodern and Its Critics

Reactions and Alternatives

New Cultural Theories After Modernity

Part 6. After 2001, Global Realities in an Uncertain Future

Global Uncertainties

Rethinking the Past That Haunts the Future

Is the Modern Order Broken?

Editorial Reviews

Lemert has given ample space to those who are at the margins of or fall completely outside of what most consider social theory … and [who] contribute to a diverse, broad, multilevel, and, in places, deep treatment of social theory and its evolution. … Late modern and postmodern theorists are well represented, and the focuses on race, gender, and globalization make this text useful for courses far beyond the standard undergraduate one in sociological theory. This book would also be well suited to more focused courses on modernity and postmodernity or even in a cultural studies curriculum. … Excellent.” —Stephen Lippmann, Teaching Sociology

“Lemert provides an illuminating introduction to the collection and introductions to each section that provide an overview of the socio-historical context and delineation of key thinkers and texts in each period. Combining important classical and contemporary material, Lemert's collection enables the student and reader to trace out the origins of the modern world to our present global and conflicted condition.” —Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles

Praise for Prior Editions
“A rich, highly textured, historically sweeping, and strikingly inclusive collection” —Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University

“Powerful and provocative … Social Theory is an essential guide through the complex contours of multicultural ideology and theory from the nineteenth century to the present.” —Manning Marable, Pulitzer Prize Winner for Malcolm X

“This collections presents a provocative wide-angle view of the history of social theory … Well-chosen selections from the new social movements as well as the classics and recent mainstream make this a fine introduction for courses in the social sciences.” —Sandra Harding, UCLA

“Lemert gives shape to a sociological imagination for the twenty-first century. This is necessary reading for us all.” —Patricia Clough, Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center

From the Publisher