In one grand effort, this is an anatomy of power, a history of the ways in which it has been defined, and a study of its forms (force, manipulation, authority, and persuasion), its bases (individual and collective resources, political mobilization), and its uses. The issues that Dennis Wrong addresses range from the philosophical and ethical to the psychological and political. Much of the work is punctuated with careful examples from history. While the author illuminates his discussion wit...

Definitions of human beings as "symbolic animals" emphasize our capacity to form theories and general laws that can be applied to common social experience. This is balanced by an equally strong will to define events and conditions that are particular to specific times, places, and individuals. In this volume, Dennis H. Wrong argues that the scientific standard of universal laws and propositions has only limited relevance to human historical phenomena.Wrong identifies the essential ...

All of the essays included in the present volume were written between 1995 and 2001. This attests to the timeliness and relevance of Dennis H. Wrong's writings. He notes that the mid-twentieth-century disposition to believe that politics fundamentally consisted of clashes between totalistic worldviews, such as communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism, nationalism, internationalism, and a cluster of "isms," may have been historically transitional. But politics now appears more nuanced, if ...

The chapters in this volume represent some of Dennis Wrong's best and most enduring essays. Initially published as Skeptical Sociology, this collection displays his ability to write compellingly for general intellectual audiences as well as for academic sociologists. The book is divided into sections that represent Wrong's major areas of interest and investigation: "Human Nature and the Perspective of Sociology," "Social Stratification and Inequality," and "Power and Politics." Ea...

'We are free when, like artists, we produce without the goad of physical necessity' Karl MarxFor Marx, freedom entailed release from commercial labour. In this highly engaging account, Eagleton outlines the relationship between production, labour and ownership which lie at the core of Marx's thinking. Marx's utopia was a place in which labour is increasingly automated, emancipating the wealth of sensuous individual development so that 'savouring a peach [is an aspe...

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced "a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally" (George Simpson, American Sociological Review ).In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focu...

How propaganda undermines democracy and why we need to pay attentionOur democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us—not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason ...

Ideology is one of the most controversial terms in the political vocabulary, exciting both revulsion and inspiration. This book examines the reasons for those views, and explains why ideologies deserve respect as a major form of political thinking. It investigates the centrality of ideology both as a political phenomenon and as an organizing framework of political thought and action. It explores the changing understandings of ideology as a concept, and the arguments of the main ideologies....

The notion of "the public sphere" has become increasingly central to theories and studies of democracy, media, and culture over the last few decades. It has also gained political importance in the context of the European Union's efforts to strengthen democracy, integration, and identity.The Idea of the Public Sphere offers a wide-ranging, accessible, and easy-to-use introduction to one of the most influential ideas in modern social and political thought, tracing its develop...

This is a book about what many teachers know but are increasingly being prevented from talking about: that real education always involves a risk. The risk is there because, as W. B. Yeats has put it, education is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire. It is there because students are not to be seen as objects to be moulded and disciplined, but as subjects of action and responsibility. The Beautiful Risk of Education is organised around a critical discussion of seven key educ...

It sounds daunting: all those '-isms', long technical words, weird French thinkers and incomprehensible Germans. You can't read a book nowadays, it seems, without being required to refer to them. From university students to the average intelligent reader, everyone is expected to justify their 'theoretical perspective'. The problem is that defining what you mean by 'theory', let alone what you mean by 'literary', causes most people, including the theorists themselves, to mumble incoherently...

Civility is desirable and possible, but can this fragile ideal be guaranteed? The Importance of Being Civil offers the most comprehensive look at the nature and advantages of civility, throughout history and in our world today. Esteemed sociologist John Hall expands our understanding of civility as related to larger social forces--including revolution, imperialism, capitalism, nationalism, and war--and the ways that such elements limit the potential for civility. Combining wide-ra...