Product Description: The revised edition of this widely acclaimed textbook provides a clear, accessible and comprehensive introduction to modern social theory.As with the first edition, the book is based around the themes of structure and action. After the introductory chapters which examine the nature of theory and its role in the social world, the book then turns to theories of action and the inability of those theories to comprehend social structures in a coherent way...read more

This is the first book in the new series, is a comprehensive introduction to philosophical problems in the social sciences, encompassing traditional and contemporary perspectives. It is readily accessible, with a firm emphasis on communicating difficult philosophical ideas clearly and effectively to those from outside this discipline. Ted Benton and Ian Craib move systematically through major topic areas, from positivism to post-structuralism, using a wide variety of examples and cases to illustrate key themes. (view table of contents)

A study of the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and of its relevance for contemporary sociology. Dr Craib sees Sartre as a central figure in modern European thought - providing links between Husserl and Heidegger on the one hand and Marxists and Structuralists on the other. He is concerned to relate Sartre's apparently abstract and often obscure philosophical work to methodological and other research problems in sociology; in particular he uses Sartrean philsophy to criticize the very influential work of Gouldner, Goffman and Garfinkel. In the first part of the book Dr Craib concentrates on Being and Nothingness and considers the way in which Sartre's brand of phenomenology can inform studies of inter-personal relationships. In the second part, he examines La Critique de la raison dialectique, which deals with the wider structure of society, the nature of social classes and the development of history. He goes on to investigate the connections between these two levels of analysis, and the complex inter-relationships between the sociologist, his fellows, his objects of study and his theoretical work.

Product Description: This text traces the development of the concept of modernity from the ways in which the founding thinkers of sociology contrasted their contemporary world with what had gone before. Craib then shows how these themes were developed through theories of and debates about modernization in mid-20th century...read more

This sane and insightful discussion explores the nature of identity in late modern societies to criticize the way in which psychotherapy has become an ideology of late modernity and to emphasize the importance of `negative' messages in psychoanalytic theory.

Product Description: Psychoanalysis: A Critical Introduction is a clearly written and accessible introduction to the main schools of psychoanalysis and the practice of psychotherapy. Unusually, it is written by an academic sociologist specializing in social theory who is also a practising psychotherapist...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: Ian Craib compellingly shows the value of studying classic thinkers such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel alongside the more popular contemporary questions. Providing an account of the key ideas of classical social theory, Dr Craib establishes their relevance today, their enduring significance, and their contribution to understanding contemporary problems...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The revised edition of this widely acclaimed textbook provides a clear, accessible and comprehensive introduction to modern social theory. As with the frist edition, the book is based around the themes of structure and action. After the introductory chapters which examine the nature of theory and its role in the social world, the book then turns to theories of action and the inability of these theories to comprehend social structures in a coherent way...read more

Product Description: Craib clearly demonstrates the need for the integration of psychoanalytic and sociological theory. His arguments incorporate traditional Freudian theory, object relations approaches, and recent feminist contributions to psychoanalytic thought...read more