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Max WeberΓÇÖs lecture ΓÇÿScience as a VocationΓÇÖ is a classic of social thought, in which central questions are posed about the nature of social and political thought and action. The lecture has often taken to be a summation of WeberΓÇÖs thought. It can also be argued that, together with the responses of its admirers and critics, it provides a focus for discussion of the nature of modernity and its political consequences, and of the philosophical and political implications of the social or human sciences. This volume provides a full, clear, revised translation of the lecture, together with translations from the German of key contributions to the lively debate that followed its publication. The book concludes with a substantial essay on the current significance of the lecture, which discusses its relevance to the debates about the nature of science as a cultural phenomenon; the disjunction between science and nature; WeberΓÇÖs conception of the disenchantment of the world; the division of scientific labour; and the fundamental nature and place of sociology.

This volume presents a series of illustrative and critical perspectives upon the developing study of men and masculinities and its importance for sociological theory. The contributions, by women and men from Britain and the United States, are organized around the unifying themes of Power and Domination; Sexuality; Identity and Perception. Feminism has raised profound questions for the social sciences, for sociological theory and for the study of men. The contributors to this volume discuss how such questions can be addressed. They demonstrate the range of theoretical traditions that can be brought to bear on the study of men, and underline the importance of understanding ΓÇÿmasculinitiesΓÇÖ in the plural. In a concluding section, three different views upon the controversy surrounding ΓÇÿMenΓÇÖs StudiesΓÇÖ are presented.

Auguste Comte proclaimed himself the founder of sociology and, on the whole, this claim is accepted. His most important work is the six-volume Cours de Philosophie Positive of which this present book is a selective abridgement. Comte, as this selection shows, was a methodological visionary. He was an eminently successful terminological innovator and to him we owe not only ''sociology'' and ''positivism'' but also ''biology'' and ''altruism''. Professor Andreski, in his lucid introduction, assesses Comte''s place under six headings, as scientist, philosopher, sociological theorist, sociological historian, reformer and methodologist. But this selection from Comte''s works will be most welcomed because it provides a modern English translation of the main body of his thought.

This book is abut the place of space in the study of class formation. It consists of a set of papers that fix on different aspects of the human geography of class formation at different points in the history of Britain and the United States over the course of the last 200 years. The book shows that the geography of class formation is a valuable and cross-disciplinary tool in the study of modern societies, integrating the work of human geographers with that of social historians, sociologists, social anthropologists and other social scientists in an enterprise which emphasises the essential unity of social science.

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ΓÇÿclassical eraΓÇÖ, 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 ΓÇÿestablishmentΓÇÖ 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.

These essays, commissioned by John Rex, reflect the state of sociology in Britain today. Leading representatives of the diverse ΓÇÿschoolsΓÇÖ provide lucid accounts of their own particular approaches to this complex discipline and in doing so demonstrate the techniques described. Topics covered include the empirical study of stratification, social evolution, survey techniques, mathematical sociology, systems theory, phenomenological approaches, Weberian sociology, structuralism, contemporary Marxism, and the development of theory after Talcott Parsons.

In this important volume of specially commissioned essays, nine leading sociologists present their answers to the question, 'What use are the sociological classics today?' They report on the latest scholarship, on neglected features of the various masters, on promising applications and unrecognised implications.

The sociology of knowledge is an area of social scientific investigation with major emphasis on the relations between social life and intellectual activity. It is now an area central to most graduate and undergraduate courses in sociology. The present collection of readings explains the origins, systematic development, present state and possible

'One may state Dilthey's significance in most general fashion by characterizing his work as the first thorough-going and sophisticated confrontation of history with positivism and natural science. Dilthey's sweep was universal: he strove to reduce to order the multifarious realms of knowledge, the conflicting traditions of cultural study, that h