This book explores the interplay between the making of Elias as a sociologist and the development of his core ideas relating to figurations, interdependence, and civilising processes. Focusing on the relevance of Elias's work for current debates within sociology, the authors centrally consider his contributions to the sociology of knowledge and methodology. Dunning and Hughes locate the work of Elias within a discussion of the crisis of sociology as a subject, and compare his figurational approach with the approaches of three major figures in modern sociology: Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. This highly readable and engaging book will be essential reading for students and scholars of sociological theory and methods.

Product Description: In contemporary Western societies, the visual domain has come to assume a thus far unprecedented cultural centrality. Daily life is replete with a potentially endless stream of images and other visual messages: from the electronic and paper-based billboards of the street, to the TV and Internet feeds of the home...read more

Product Description: Historically, social researchers have shown a willingness to exploit new technologies to enhance, facilitate, and support their various activities. However, arguably no other technological development has influenced the landscape of social research as rapidly and fundamentally as the Internet...read more

Product Description: This memoir is based on my experiences in this world. Bob Marley, Princess Diana, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. have all talked about essentially the same thing: that there is One Universal Love that flows inside us all...read more

Product Description: Where do government agents go when they retire? What new lives do they make for themselves? Do the perps they put away ever show up to trouble them again? The residents of Wyndom Acres hide the answers to these questions on the hill...read more

Product Description: Why do people smoke? Taking a unique approach to this question, Jason Hughes moves beyond the usual focus on biological addiction that dominates news coverage and public health studies and invites us to reconsider how social and personal understandings of smoking crucially affect the way people experience it...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)