The Novartis Foundation Series is a popular collection of the proceedings from Novartis Foundation Symposia, in which groups of leading scientists from a range of topics across biology, chemistry and medicine assembled to present papers and...
The Novartis Foundation Series is a popular collection of the proceedings from Novartis Foundation Symposia, in which groups of leading scientists from a range of topics across biology, chemistry and medicine assembled to present papers and...
The Virtual Self is an engaging and exciting text that addresses issues relating to our rapidly changing society, social structure, and communication needs. In doing so, it addresses major issues in sociology that inform virtually all of a...
Since 9/11, the American government has presumed to speak and act in the name of ‘civilization’. But isthat how the rest of the world sees it? And if not, why not? Stephen Mennell leads up to such contemporary questions through a careful study...
We are spurred into action by our troubles and fears; but all too often our action fails to address the true causes of our worries. When trying to make sense of our lives, we tend to blame our own failings and weaknesses for our discomforts and...
In this major theoretical statement, the author offers a new and provocative interpretation of the institutional transformations associated with modernity. We do not as yet, he argues, live in a post-modern world. Rather the distinctive...
In this book David Lyon analyses the various contexts of surveillance activity and offers a balanced account of the influence electronic information systems have on the social order today.
A Theory of Shopping offers a highly original perspective on one of our most basic everyday activities – shopping. We commonly assume that shopping is primarily concerned with individuals and materialism. But Miller rejects this assumption and...
In this path-breaking work, Mark Poster highlights the nature of the newly emerging forms of social life, in the current era. The flexibility of language which the computer allows makes the written word less certain and less concrete. The result...
This highly topical book is a concise and accessible account of the relationship between technology and work. Firstly, it reviews and critically assesses a variety of recent approaches to the social and cultural dimensions of technology....
This textbook aims to give an introduction to the use of documentary sources in social research. It is designed to be a companion to courses in research methods in the social sciences and history and a reference text for those beginning research...
In this important book Niklas Luhmann – one of the leading social thinkers of the late 20th century – analyses the emergence of ‘love' as the basis of personal relationships in modern societies. He argues that, while family systems remained...
A Companion to Economic Forecasting provides an accessible and comprehensive account of recent developments in economic forecasting. Each of the chapters has been specially written by an expert in the field, bringing together in a single volume...
In the midst of the current ecological crisis, there is often lofty talk of the need for humanity to ‘overcome its divisions’ and work together to tackle the big challenges of our time. But as this new book by Razmig Keucheyan shows, the real...
Pierre Bourdieu is arguably the most influential sociologist of the twentieth century, especially since the once common criticisms of his determinism and reproductionism have receded. Now, however, his intellectual enterprise faces a new set of...
The prison is a recent invention, hardly more than two centuries old, yet it has become the universal system of punishment. How can we understand the place that the correctional system occupies in contemporary societies? What are the experiences...
Throughout the Western world, governments and financial elites responded to the financial crisis of 2008 by trying to restore the conditions of business as usual, but the economic, social and human damage inflicted by the crisis has given rise...
In this ground-breaking study, Sophie Body-Gendrot provides a comparative analysis of the growing problem of new forms of poverty and social marginalisation in contemporary advanced societies.
Urbanisation and urban development issues are the focus of this comprehensive account which introduces readers to the far-reaching changes now taking place in Chinese cities.
The Form of Cities offers readers a considered theoretical introduction to the art of designing cities. Demonstrates that cities are replete with symbolic values, collective memory, association and conflict. Proposes a new theoretical...
This is the first book in Polity's new 'Urban Futures' series. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, proclamations rang out that gentrification had gone global. But what do we mean by 'gentrification' today? How can we compare...
Seeing like a city means recognizing that cities are living things made up of a tangle of networks, built up from the agency of countless actors. Cities must not be considered as expressions of larger paradigms or sites of human effort and...
This book is a detailed and wide-ranging account of the birth of social theory as a distinctive and modern intellectual genre, providing a brilliant account of the «pre-history» of sociology and a vivid portrayal of intellectual culture between...
This text provides a clear and systematic introduction to the development of social and political theory in modern Italy. It gives particular attention to relating the main traditions of Italian thought to the history of the country since...
Molefi Kete Asante's Afrocentric philosophy has become one of the most persistent influences in the social sciences and humanities over the past three decades. It strives to create new forms of discourse about Africa and the African Diaspora,...
This book marks a radical and powerful intervention in traditional arguments about pornography. Kappeler re-examines the artistic distinctions between fantasy and reality, pornography and erotica, and challenges the legal definition of obscenity...
This is a major contribution to feminist theory and debate, addressing issues such as sexual violence, social violence and hatred of foreigners in a lucid and highly original way.
The idea that gender equality in education has been achieved is now a staple of public debate. As a result, educational policies and practices often do not deal explicitly with gender issues, such as sexual abuse, harassment or violence....
Climate change, natural disasters, and loss of biodiversity are all considered major environmental concerns for the international community both now and into the future. Each are damaging to the earth, but they also negatively impact human...
In an era of accelerating technology and increasing complexity, how should we reimagine the emancipatory potential of feminism? How should gender politics be reconfigured in a world being transformed by automation, globalization and the digital...
The subject of the aesthetic has returned to cultural and literary debates with a vengeance. The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies is a timely and authoritative collection of essays that analyze the role of aesthetics in American and British...
Experts from five continents provide a thorough exploration of cultural studies, looking at different ideas, places and problems addressed by the field. Brings together the latest work in cultural studies and provides a synopsis of critical...
The Politics of Media Policy provides a critical perspective on the dynamics of media policy in the US and UK and offers a comprehensive guide to some of the major points of debate in the media today. While many policymakers boast of the...
A Companion to Media Studies is a comprehensive collection that brings together new writings by an international team to provide an overview of the theories and methodologies that have produced this most interdisciplinary of fields. Tackles a...
With the advent of digital devices and software, self-tracking practices have gained new adherents and have spread into a wide array of social domains. The Quantified Self movement has emerged to promote 'self-knowledge through numbers'. In this...
A new industrial revolution. The age of making. From bits to atoms. Many people are excited by the possibilities offered by new fabrication technologies like 3D printers, and the way in which they are being used in hacker and makerspaces. But...
Few trends have had as much impact on television as formats have in recent years. Long confined to the fringes of the TV industry, they have risen to prominence since the late 1990s. Today, they are a global business with hundreds of programmes...
In an interactive and densely connected world, transnational communication has become a central feature of everyday life. Taking account of a variety of media formats and different regions of the world, Adrian Athique provides a much-needed...
What Journalism Could Be asks readers to reimagine the news by embracing a conceptual prism long championed by one of journalism's leading contemporary scholars. A former reporter, media critic and academic, Barbie Zelizer charts a singular...
This book is about the rise of digital labor. Companies like Uber and Amazon Mechanical Turk promise autonomy, choice, and flexibility. One of network culture's toughest critics, Trebor Scholz chronicles the work of workers in the «sharing...
In the mediated digital era, communication is changing fast and eating up ever greater shares of real-world power. Corporate battles and guerrilla wars are fought on Twitter. Facebook is the new Berlin, home to tinkers, tailors, spies – and...
Digital, Political, Radical is a siren call to the field of media and communications and the study of social and political movements. We must put the politics of transformation at the very heart of our analyses to meet the global challenges of...
Public relations is, by design, the least visible of the persuasive industries. It operates behind the scenes, encouraging us to consume, vote, believe and behave in ways that keep economies moving and citizens from storming the citadels of...
Мэрилин Ялом рассматривает историю брака «с женской точки зрения». Героини этой книги – жены древнегреческие и древнеримские, католические и протестантские, жены времен покорения Фронтира и Второй мировой войны. Здесь есть рассказы о тех...
Настоящее издание представляет собой знаменитую книгу ученого Льва Мечникова «Цивилизация и великие исторические реки», а также его статью «Школа борьбы в социологии». Книга Мечникова посвящена вопросу зарождения человеческой цивилизации и ее...
В настоящее время методологические проблемы познания становятся все более очевидными, и все активнее предпринимаются попытки разработать новые принципы осмысления реальности и структурирования ее объектов. Почему же сегодня востребованы новые...