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By closely analysing the contributions of such theorists as More, Hobbes, Vico, Montesquieu, Ferguson and Millar to the emergence of sociology in its original form, this book follows the discursive construction of sociology in the context of the society-wide early modern practical discourse about violence and rights. Parallels with the nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourse on poverty and justice, and the contemporary discourse of risk and responsibility, allow the author for a reflection not only on the generation of knowledge through discourse but also on the role that sociology itself plays in this process.

Many contemporary issues cannot be readily or fully understood at the level of the nation state and the concept of globalization is used to develop understanding through the analysis of global (transnational) processes. This volume explores the phenomenon of Americanization, and its worldwide impact, and the cultural consequences of globalization.

For almost a hundred years, the academic study of migration concentrated on evolving standardised models of migration behaviour based on data from censuses or the registration of births, marriages and deaths. More recently, it has been realised that such models fail to take into account the decision-making behind migration and that better understanding will come from study of the behaviour of individuals as well as aggregate numbers. In this book the imaginative use of alternative sources – for example, apprentice books, guild and craft records, legal and court documents, diaries and biographies – gives fresh insights into the processes of movement to reveal much more complex circulatory behaviour than the standard models derived from census and registration sources alone have suggested. The first chapter confronts the issue of rural mobility in post-famine Ireland and is followed by a study centred on Alpine rural families that built impressive networks across pre-industrial Western Europe. Two chapters focus on the particular characteristics of worker groups: mining families of south Lancashire during the period of rapid increase in coal production in the eighteenth century; and the organised mobility of skilled labour in nineteenth-century central Europe. Next, a rigorous deployment of the techniques of family reconstruction and record linkage embracing a variety of sources (vital event registers, wills, port books, apprentice records) teases out the migration histories of those who settled in eighteenth-century Liverpool.

Modern philosophical thought has a manifold tradition of emphasizing ‘the moment’. ‘The moment’ demands questioning all-too-common notions of time, of past, present and future, uniqueness and repetition and rupture and continuity. This book addresses the key questions posed by ‘the moment’, considering writers such as Nietzsche, Husserl, Benjamin and Badiou, and elucidates the connections between social theory, philosophy, literary theory and history that are opened up by this notion.

Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism continues to be one of the most influential texts in the sociology of modern Western societies. Although Weber never produced the further essays with which he intended to extend the study, he did complete four lengthy Replies to reviews of the text by two German historians. Written between 1907 and 1910, the Replies offer a fascinating insight into Weber's intentions in the original study, and the present volume is the first complete translation of all four Replies in English.

This collection of essays explores the character and quality of the Holocaust's impact and the abiding legacy it has left for social theory. The premise which informs the contributions is that, ten years after its publication, Zygmunt Bauman's claim that social theory has either failed to address the Holocaust or protected itself from its implications remains true.

The debate on varieties of modernity is central to current social theory and research, and this book explores the theme in relation to the culture and society of Turkey. It focuses on the Kemalist project to create a modern Turkish nation-state, analysing its historical background, the role of the concepts of ethnicity and nation, and the configurations of state, society and economy in the new Turkish republic. The author then moves on to examine the relations between Islam and modernity, arguing that both must be understood as open to multiple interpretations rather than seen as monolithic and as diametrically opposed. He considers the rise of Islamism in Turkey and looks in particular at the paradoxical role of women activists within the Islamist movement, ultimately arguing that Islamism must be understood as a modern movement, albeit a paradoxical one, rather than simply as a return to ‘tradition’.

This book offers an account of what makes science special among other human pursuits, critically engaging with a variety of approaches, especially constructivist and relativist studies of science and technology. It focuses on the studied lack of haste of science, its relative stress–freeness, and its socially sanctioned withdrawal from the swift pace of ordinary life. The book offers an argument that emphasizes the dangers of cosseting science from the scourge of internal competition while at the same time highlighting the need for distance between the process of scientific thought and the faster machinery of politics, business, sports, and the media.