Sociology Theory

Have you ever felt the Covid story did not entirely add up? Expired contains multiple eye-opening revelations about Covid with compelling evidence that provides a coherent, sober, and clear explanation that better fits the data we have so far.

In this, his best-known work, the controversial American economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen appropriates Darwin's theory of evolution to analyze the modern industrial system. For Veblen, the shallowness and superficiality observed in society results from the tendency to believe that true accomplishment lies in arriving at a condition of ostentatious wealth and status.

Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve.

Since the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been seen as ground zero for debates about the appropriate role of government in the wake of the Great Recession. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall that brought thousands of protesters to Capitol Square, he was subsequently reelected. How could this happen? How is it that the very people who stand to benefit from strong government services not only vote against the candidates who support those services but are vehemently against the very idea of big government?

A military expert reveals how science fiction is fast becoming reality on the battlefield, changing not just how wars are fought, but also the politics, economics, laws, and ethics that surround war itself. Singer’s previous books foretold the rise of private military contractors and the advent of child soldiers - predictions that have proved all too accurate. Now he explores the greatest revolution in military affairs since the atom bomb: robotic warfare. We are now seeing a massive shift in military technology....

In 1890s America Thorstein Veblen attacked a careless acceptance of prevailing social structures, identifying ancient roots for ‘pecuniary culture’ and ‘conspicuous consumption’–realities that promoted materialism and squashed fulfilment. In The Theory of the Leisure Class the worthy Engineer, creating essential products for all, is pitted against the predatory Businessman, exempt from grubby industrial toil and focussed on useless profits.

Though created by humans, our technologies, markets, and institutions often contain an antihuman agenda. Douglas Rushkoff, digital theorist and host of the NPR-One podcast Team Human, reveals the dynamics of this antihuman machinery and invites us to remake these aspects of society in ways that foster our humanity. In 100 aphoristic statements, his manifesto exposes how forces for human connection have turned into ones of isolation and repression.

This book throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the US welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg's hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist - "a delightful compendium of quotidian examples illustrating important economic and financial theories" (The Journal of Finance). In this revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg's hugely popular book, he applies economic theory to today's most pressing concerns, answering a diverse range of daring questions, such as: why are seat belts deadly, why do celebrity endorsements sell products, and many more.

Look down as you buzz across America, and Oklahoma looks like another “flyover state.” A closer inspection, however, reveals one of the most tragic, fascinating, and unpredictable places in the United States In this book, Russell Cobb tells the story of a state rich in natural resources and artistic talent, yet near the bottom in education and social welfare. Raised in Tulsa, Cobb engages Oklahomans across the boundaries of race and class to hear their troubles, anxieties, and aspirations and delves deep to understand their contradictory and often stridently independent attitudes.

The issues of poverty, inequality, racial injustice, and climate change have never been more pressing or paralyzing. Current approaches to social change, which rely on linear thinking and traditional power dynamics to "solve" social problems, are not helping. In fact, they may only be entrenching the status quo. This book draws on stories of committed social changemakers to uncover a set of principles and practices for social change that dramatically depart from the industrial approach. Simple yet profound, these stories distill timely lessons for leaders, scholars, and policymakers.

These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn't working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on? In this urgent cultural diagnosis, author and activist Astra Taylor exposes how seemingly disparate crises—rising inequality and declining mental health, the ecological emergency, and the threat of authoritarianism—originate from a social order built on insecurity.

Like F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises moved beyond economics in his later years to address questions regarding the foundation of all social science. But unlike Hayek's attempts, Mises' writings on these matters have received less attention than they deserve. Theory and History, writes Rothbard in his introduction, "remains by far the most neglected masterwork of Mises". Here Mises defends his all-important idea of methodological dualism: one approach to the hard sciences and another for the social sciences.

Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the "experts." Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory.

Peter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this postcapitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism, socialism, and exterminism might actually entail.

From the perspective of Western modernity, humanity inhabits a disenchanted cosmos. Yet the vast majority of cultures throughout human history treat spirits as very real persons, members of a cosmic society who interact with humans and control their fate. In most cultures, even today, people are but a small part of an enchanted universe misconstrued by the transcendent categories of "religion" and the "supernatural." The New Science of the Enchanted Universe shows how anthropologists and other social scientists must rethink these cultures of immanence and study them by their own lights.

Finding evidence in new psychological research, the myth of Psyche and Cupid, Shakespeare’s plays, Freud’s case histories, Anne Frank’s diaries and contemporary novels, Carol Gilligan discovers that the roots of a more hopeful view of love are all around us.

Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in our development. According to this familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures - women are more cautious and parenting-focused, men seek status to attract more mates - re-created in each generation by sex hormones and male and female brains. This, in turn, is the basis of supposedly entrenched inequalities in our modern societies.

The Marvel of Martyrdom takes a broad perspective on self-sacrifice and martyrdom, bringing together religion, popular culture, history, psychology, and mythology. Stories of individuals both famous (Gandhi) and obscure (Rodrigo Rosenberg) intertwine with research on altruism, happiness, and radicalization to terrorism. The changing landscape of the book's setting - from The Roman Empire to 19th-century Russia to Nazi Germany to post-World War II India to present day Ukraine - makes the power of self-sacrifice and martyrdom come alive.