Series Editor: Anthony Elliott, University of South Australia
The Key Ideas series explores major concepts and pressing issues and debates in sociology and the social sciences, from class and sexuality to racism and consumption. The accessible guides offer concise and accessible overviews of core and cutting-edge topics, including class, sexuality, racism and consumption. Each volume is written by a leading expert in the field and uses the latest research findings and cutting-edge approaches from the social sciences to offer critical perspectives and lively, and starkly original interpretations of issues. With new editions redesigned to engage with major global challenges, they offer an assessment of the relevance of ideas for today’s world. Books in the Key Ideas series are perfect primers and pre-course reading for students of sociology, political science, economics, psychology, philosophy, and geography, as well as approachable introductions to contemporary issues for the interested general reader.
To discuss a proposal, please contact the commissioning editor Helen Pritt ([email protected]).
By Shaun Best
June 17, 2019
This book explores the concept of the stranger as a ‘modern’ social form, identifying the differing conceptions of strangerhood presented in the literature since the publication of Georg Simmel’s influential essay ‘The Stranger’, questioning the assumptions around what it means to be regarded as ‘...
By Beth Watts, Suzanne Fitzpatrick
May 10, 2018
Welfare conditionality has become an idea of global significance in recent years. A ‘hot topic’ in North America, Australia, and across Europe, it has been linked to austerity politics, and the rise of foodbanks and destitution. In the Global South, where publicly funded welfare protection systems ...
By Gerard Delanty
March 23, 2018
The increasing atomization of modern society has been accompanied by an enduring nostalgia for the idea of community as a source of security and belonging in an increasingly insecure world. Far from disappearing, community has been revived by transnationalism and by new kinds of individualism. ...
By Thomas Pfister, Martin Schweighofer, André Reichel
February 12, 2018
Sustainability as a reference frame for dealing with the interconnection of environmental, economic and social issues on a global scale is not only characterized by complex problems and long-term strategies but also by differences and disagreements with regard to its meanings and how they should be...
By Manuel Anselmi
August 28, 2017
Populism: An Introduction is the first introduction to the theme of populism. It will introduce the principal theories, definitions, models and contemporary debates. A number of global case studies will be used to illustrate the concept: • Russian populism; • Latin American populism; • Italian ...
By Pavla Miller
June 14, 2017
Patriarchy, particularly as embedded in the Old and New Testaments, and Roman legal precepts, has been a powerful organising concept with which social order has been understood, maintained, enforced, contested, adjudicated and dreamt about for over two millennia of western history. This brief book ...
By Peter Sorlin
July 12, 1994
This book provides a much needed short, reliable and stimulating guide to the mass media in present day society. Incisive, surprising and stimulating it will become an essential text in thinking and writing about the mass media....
By John Field
October 31, 2016
The term ‘social capital’ is a way of defining the intangible resources of community, shared values and trust upon which we draw in daily life. It has achieved considerable international currency across the social sciences through the very different work of Pierre Bourdieu in France and James ...
By Marian Adolf, Nico Stehr
September 16, 2016
As we move through our modern world, the phenomenon we call knowledge is always involved. Whether we talk of know-how, technology, innovation, politics or education, it is the concept of knowledge that ties them all together. But despite its ubiquity as a modern trope we seldom encounter knowledge ...
By Barry Smart
January 19, 1993
At last, a short and authoritative critical introduction to one of the most talked about and most misunderstood concepts of current times. Barry Smart provides a clear and readable discussion for students which also manages to be a shrewd and stimulating contribution to the debate about modernity ...
By Dr Robert Bocock, Robert Bocock
December 13, 1993
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....
By Anthony P. Cohen
July 24, 1985
Anthony Cohen makes a distinct break with earlier approaches to the study of community, which treated the subject in largely structural terms. His view is interpretive and experiential, seeing the community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols whose meanings vary among its members. He ...