Social Theory and Modernity [Hardcover]

This major new textbook in social theory takes the concept of modernity as its guiding theme.Acknowledgements.

Introduction: Modern and Postmodern Social Theory.

Part I: Classical Social Theory.

1. Modernity and Society: Marx and Durkheim.

2. Modernity and Reason: Simmel and Weber.

Part II: Modern Social Theory.

3. A Critique of Reason: Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse.

4. Reason and Power: Foucault.

5. The Potential of Reason: Habermas.

Part III: Postmodern Social Theory.

6. Reality in Retreat: Lyotard and Baudrillard.

7. Society under Suspicion: Bauman and Rorty.

8. Modernity Renewed: Giddens and Beck.

Conclusion.

Notes.

References.

Index.

'Nigel Dodd is to be congratulated for a most intelligent, mature, organized, balanced, and sane account of the major trends in European social theory over the last century and a half. I know of no sounder secondary source on the theories of modernity and postmodernity. He brings clarity and order to a range of literature that is too often murky and unordered, and for that several generations of scholars and students will be grateful.'
--Neil J. Smelser, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford

'[An] excellent guide to the state of the art in contemporary social theory...provide[s] excellent critical accounts of the evolution and contemporary relevance of modern social theory.' (Sociological Research Online)

'Dodd's work is thus both a survey of social theory...and an effort to find a new way forward. The book is consciously positioned as a college coursel3