Summary
Contents
Subject index
Social Theory in the Real World is concerned with illustrating the practical benefits of social theory. Many students find it hard to relate the real insights provided by social theory to their real life experiences, and many lecturers struggle to demonstrate the relevance of social theory to everyday life. This book offers an accessible, non-patronizing solution to the problem, demonstrating that social theory need not be remote and obscure, but if used in imaginative ways, it can be indispensable in challenging our common sense perceptions and understandings. The book identifies the key themes of contemporary social theory: mass society, postindustrialism, consumerism, postmodernism, McDonaldization, risk and globa
A Global Society?
A Global Society?
Of all the themes covered in this book, globalization might well, or at the very least should, represent the most pressing of concerns for contemporary social theorists. Authors such as Hogan (1996) and Wiseman (1995) have none the less described globalization as an ‘awful’ and ‘ugly’ word bound up in complex processes and aspects of social change, but also in theoretical trends and fashions. Despite and perhaps because of the plethora of work that continues to be published in and around the area of globalization, the term itself remains highly contested and ambiguous. As Hogan goes on to note, it is this very ambiguity that has ensured its longevity. Globalization remains an open-ended and, at times, confusing notion, and one ...
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