Polity imprint: 1443 books

This accessible book addresses one of the twenty-first century's most important issues: the increasing lack of connection between political institutions and the social reality of our everyday lives. A gulf between popular expectations and formal politics has widened continually since the revolts against...

A tension between the desire to be respected as an equal and the desire to distinguish oneself as a unique person lies at the heart of the modern social order. Everyone cares about recognition: no one wants to be treated with disrespect, insulted, humiliated, or simply ignored. This basic motivation...

In this brilliant and widely acclaimed work, Peter Burke presents a social and cultural history of the Italian Renaissance. He discusses the social and political institutions which existed in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and analyses the ways of thinking and seeing which characterized...

This accessible and fresh account of German writing since 1750 is a case study of literature as a cultural and spiritual resource in modern societies. Beginning with the emergence of German language literature on the international stage in the mid-eighteenth century, the book plays down conventional...

With a sharp eye for social detail and the pressures of class inequality, Alfred Hitchcock brought to the American scene a perspicacity and analytical shrewdness unparalleled in American cinema. Murray Pomerance works from a basis in cultural analysis and a detailed knowledge of Alfred Hitchcock's...

In this book Anthony Giddens addresses a range of issues concerning current developments in social theory, relating them to the prospects for sociology in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Composed of closely integrated papers, all written over the past few years, the book includes...

This book provides an interpretation of one of the key aspects of Max Weber’s work: the relationship between his political and sociological writings. Weber’s sociological studies have often been treated as if they were completely separate from his political attitudes and interests, and in general...

The idea of socialism has given normative grounding and orientation to the outrage over capitalism for more than 150 years, and yet today it seems to have lost much of its appeal. Despite growing discontent, many would hesitate to invoke socialism when it comes to envisioning life beyond capitalism....

This volume develops a novel approach to state theory. It offers a comprehensive review of the existing literature on the state and sets a new agenda for state research. Four central themes define the scope of the book: an account of the bases of the operational autonomy of the state; the need...

In this book, one of the world’s leading social theorists presents a critical, alarmed, but also nuanced understanding of the post-traditional world we inhabit today. Jeffrey Alexander writes about modernity as historical time and social condition, but also as ideology and utopia. The idea of modernity...

The idea of progress guided human expectations and actions for over two centuries. From the Enlightenment onwards, it was widely believed that the condition of humankind could be radically improved. History had embarked on an unstoppable forward trajectory, realizing the promise of freedom and reason....

Built upon a series of critical encounters with major figures in classical and present-day social and political thought, this volume offers not only a challenging critique of major traditions of social and political analysis, but unique insights into the ideas which Giddens has developed over the past two decades.

This new edition of a well-regarded book provides a concise and exceptionally clear introduction to Habermas's work, from his early writings on the public sphere, through his work on law and the state, to his more recent discussion of science, religion and contemporary Europe. Outhwaite examines all...

Does a global economy render the traditional nation-state obsolete? Does globalization threaten democratic life, or offer it new forms of expression? What are the implications of globalization for our understanding of politics and of national and cultural identities? In The Postnational Constellation,...