Social Theory: A Historical Introduction, 2nd Edition

Introduction

1. The Enlightenment

1. 1 Prehistory

1. 2 The concept of modernity

1. 3 A moral science

1. 4 The development of social theory

1. 5 Inner strains

2. Hegel

2. 1 Reconciling modernity

2. 2 The labour of the negative

2. 3 The debate over modernity

3. Liberals and Reactionaries

3. 1 Post-revolutionary debates

3. 2 Agonistic liberalism: Tocqueville and Mill

3. 3 Providence and race: Maistre and Gobineau

4. Marx

4. 1 The adventures of the dialectic

4. 2 History and capitalism

4. 3 Class struggle and revolution

5. Life and Power

5. 1 Evolution before and after Darwin

5. 2 Two evolutionists: Spencer and Kautsky

5. 3 Nature as the will to power: Nietzsche

6. Durkheim

6. 1 Social evolution and scientific objectivity

6. 2 Society as a moral reality

6. 3 Meaning and belief

7. Weber

7. 1 Prussian agriculture and the German state

7. 2 Science and the warring gods

7. 3 History and rationalization

7. 4 Liberal imperialism and democratic politics

8. The Illusions of Progress

8. 1 The strange death of liberal Europe

8. 2 Objectivity and estrangement: Simmel

8. 3 The self dissected: Freud

8. 4 Memories of underdevelopment: Russian intellectuals and capitalism

9. Revolution and Counter-Revolution

9. 1 Hegelian Marxism: Lukács and Gramsci

9. 2 Heidegger and the conservative revolution

10. The Golden Age

10. 1 Theories of capitalism: Keynes and Hayek

10. 2 Functionalist sociology: Talcott Parsons

10. 3 Despairing critique: the Frankfurt school

11. Crack-Up?

11. 1 The 1960s and after

11. 2 Structure and subject: Lévi-Strauss and Althusser

11. 3 Nietzsche’s revenge: Foucault and poststructuralism

11. 4 Carrying on the tradition: Habermas and Bourdieu

12. Debating modernity and postmodernity

12. 1 Postmodernity?

12. 2 Modernity and capitalism

12. 3 Reason and nature

12. 4 Theory and practice

12. 5 Universal and particular

12. 6 Beyond capitalism?

13. Changing the subject: globalization, capitalism, and imperialism

13. 1 Much ado about globalization

13. 2 The social as networks ... or as nothing

13. 3 Back to capitalism - and imperialism?

13. 4 The debate resumed

Further Reading

Index