This book analyzes the main post-war features of consumption. It traces the historical development of consumption and discusses the major contributions made by sociologists in discussing the subject. Robert Bocock is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Open University.

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 characteristics of our major social institutions in the closing period of the twentieth century express the emergence of a period of 'high modernity,' in which prior trends are radicalised rather than undermined. A post-modern social universe may eventually...

WINNER of the 2015 ICA Outstanding Book AwardThis path-breaking book explores how solidarity towards vulnerable others is performed in our media environment. It argues that stories where famine is described through our own experience of dieting or or where solidarity with Africa translates into wearing a cool armband tell us about much more than the cause that they attempt to communicate. They tell us something about the ways in which we imagine the world outside o...

In the mid-1990s, at the height of academic discussion about the inevitability of capitalist globalization, J. K. Gibson-Graham presented a groundbreaking and controversial argument for envisioning alternative economies. This new edition includes an introduction in which the authors address critical responses to The End of Capitalism and outline the economic research and activism they have been engaged in since the book was first published.“Paralyzing problems are banished...

An independently minded champion of ‘the project of modernity’ in a supposedly post-modern age, Jurgen Habermas (1929- ) is one of the most widely influential thinkers of our times.An easy-to-use A-Z guide to a body of work that spans philosophy, sociology, politics, law and cultural theory, Habermas: The Key Concepts explores Habermas’ writings on:capitalismgeneticslawneo-conservatismuniversal pragmatics.

This is a book with a difference: it produces a completely new perspective on lifelong learning and the learning society and locates them within humanity itself. Five themes run through this book:Humankind has always been aware of the imperfections of human society: as a consequence, it has looked back to a mythological past and forward to a utopian future that might be religious, political, economic or even educational to find something better.L...

This new book brings together Doreen Massey's key writings on three areas central to a range of disciplines. In addition, the author reflects on the development of these ideas and outlines her current position on these important issues.The book is organized around the three themes of space, place and gender. It traces the development of ideas about the social nature of space and place and the relation of both to issues of gender and debates within feminism. It is debates in these a...

This book's individual entries introduce, explain and contextualise the key topics within classical social theory. Definitions, summaries and key words are developed throughout with careful cross-referencing allowing students to move effortlessly between core ideas and themes.

Resilience has become a central concept in government policy understandings over the last decade. In our complex, global and interconnected world, resilience appears to be the policy ‘buzzword’ of choice, alleged to be the solution to a wide and ever-growing range of policy issues. This book analyses the key aspects of resilience-thinking and highlights how resilience impacts upon traditional conceptions of governance.This concise and accessible book investigates how resilience-thi...

Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society.Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams’ classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art refe...

Geographical Thought provides a clear and accessible introduction to the key ideas and figures in human geography. The book provides an essential introduction to the theories that have shaped the study of societies and space. Opening with an exploration of the founding concepts of human geography in the nineteenth century academy, the authors examine the range of theoretical perspectives that have emerged within human geography over the last century from feminist and marxist schol...

This revised edition of Pip Jones's extremely popular introduction to social theory, now benefiting from the collaboration of Shaun Le Boutillier and Liz Bradbury, has been carefully and thoroughly updated with the latest developments in this continually changing field. Written in a refreshingly lucid and engaging style, Introducing Social Theory provides readers with a wide-ranging, well organized and thematic introduction to all the major thinkers, issues and debates in classical and con...