Product Description: It is now accepted that many of the determinants of health and health care are social. This volume offers a philosophical and theoretical frame within which the nature and extent of this might be optimally examined. The analysis is rooted in Roy Bhaskar’s basic and dialectical critical realism, although it draws also on the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas...read more

Product Description: While tracing the historical emergence of the café as a social institution and noting its multiple faces and functions in the modernity of the occident, three themes run like threads of varying texture through the chapters: the social connectivity and inclusion of cafés, café as surrogate office, and café as site of exchange for news and views...read more

Product Description: Contemporary Theorists for Medical Sociology explores the work of key social theorists and the application of their ideas to issues around health and illness. Encouraging students and researchers to use mainstream sociological thought to inform and deepen their knowledge and understanding of the many arenas of health and healthcare, this text discusses and critically reviews the work of several influential contemporary thinkers, including – Foucault, Bauman, Habermas, Luhmann, Bourdieu, Merleau-Ponty, Wallerstein, Archer, Deleuze, Guattari, and Castells...read more

Product Description: This introduction to medical sociology is for medical students and health professionals in the United Kingdom and Europe.A concise and jargon-free introduction to medical sociology – accessible and readable for medical students with little time to devote to this subject...read more

Product Description: This is a succinct and comprehensive account of the contemporary sociology of sport. It starts by tracing the key ‘moments’ in the transition from pre-modern to modern sport, giving detailed accounts of the athletic competition in the ancient games at Olympia; the genesis of modern track-and-field athletics in nineteenth-century England; and the reconstruction by de Coubertin and unfolding of the Olympic movement through the twentieth century...read more

Medical sociology was first recognizable as a distinct area of study in the 1950s and is now probably the largest specialized area of sociology. This collection comprises a comprehensive statement of the history, current concerns and relevance of medical sociology to an understanding of health and health care worldwide. The articles included are genuinely international in two important respects: they represent the best of contemporary scholarship worldwide, and they have applicability to all types of society and health care systems.A general introduction in the first volume provides a review of the development and state of medical sociology internationally as well as a rationale for the collection as a whole. Each of the four volumes also has its own introduction, and each of the four sections within each volume is preceded by a brief rationale.Titles also available in this series include, Child Welfare (November 2004, 4 Volumes, £495) and the forthcoming collection Health Care Systems (2005, 3 Volumes, c.£395).

Product Description: * How have health, illness and medicine been affected by social change?* What are the implications of disorganized capitalism, neo-liberalism and the 'Third Way' for health and healing?* How important are class, gender and ethnic relations for health care reforms and the distribution of health?Health and Social Change offers a clear and incisive examination of the social changes that have affected capitalist societies, and their ramifications for health and for systems of healing...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The contribution of the German sociologist and philosopher Jurgen Habermas has proved seminal for attempts to understand the nature of social change in the context of global capitalism. This book provides an accessible introduction to his work and shows how his theories can be fruitfully applied to a wide range of topics in the sociology of health and illness including: * lay health knowledge * doctor-patient interaction* health care decision-making * health inequalities * new social movements in health * health care rationing * the Foucault perspective...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This book establishes the voice of medical sociology in key debates in the social sciences. Concerning modernity, postmodernity, structuralism and poststructuralism issues covered include: * disease and medicine in postmodern times * gender, health and the feminist debate on the postmodern * ageing, the lifecourse and the sociology of health and ageing * medicine and complementary medicine * death in postmodernity. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The growth of AIDS has focused renewed attention on the institution of prostitution. In contrast to the moral panic reaction of some sectors of society, very different initiatives are being displayed by other groups in relation to the need to scrutinize the social, moral and legal status of prostitution and to reflect on the arguments in support of and against legalising brothels, paying particular concern to prostitutes' own health...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: What does modern medical science know about menstruation? Less than is commonly assumed, according to Annette and Graham Scambler. In this thought-provoking book, they challenge orthodox thinking on menstruation and disorders associated with it...read more

Product Description: This book serves as a general text. It attempts to forge links between medical sociology and mainstream sociology and to stimulate other social scientists to venture into this underdeveloped area.