The six essays in this volume are designed to introduce the general reader to some of the main issues in the fields of education, industry, politics, family changes and the like, which concern British sociologists. While each of the essays is independently conceived, their joint aim is to show how sociologists can use empirical methods to throw fresh light on current social problems and also to convey the distinctive approach, the distinctive view of the world towards which sociologists are striving.

This book presents essays reflecting the current state and near-term prospects of sociological theory.

Professor John Rex was one of Britain’s most eminent sociologists, and a teacher of a whole generation of sociology students. In this book he presents a stimulating introduction to the major issues of sociological theory and gives an account of the perspective which has informed his thinking and writing. He deals with the objectives of sociological investigation, the methods it uses and how in these respects it resembles or differs from natural science and history. He goes on to discuss the work of Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Engels, Mills and other important theorists, and concludes with a convincing demonstration of the continuing relevance of the Weberian tradition to the study of sociology.

This title was first published in 2001. This book tackles the important issue of the tasks that confront sociology in the third millennium. It examines the sociological interpretations of the World-Wide revolution which - amid unprecedented scientific and technological progress and the globalization of markets - has generated new inequalities, poverty, structural unemployment and mass conditionings. A number of the most distinguished living sociologists (including Boudon, Beck, Eisenstadt, Tiryakain, Wieviorka) furnish profound and innovative interpretations of changes in world society, while outlining the frontiers of sociological research for the 21st Century. The contributions to the book not only prompt reflection on the structure and organization of sociological research, but also revitalize sociological inquiry by conducting original and stimulating analysis of theoretical and methodological issues - an undertaking essential for the survival of the discipline itself.

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address the significant disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists.