The Constitution Of Society

Anthony Giddens has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade. In The Constitution of Society he outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form. A particular feature is Giddens's concern to connect abstract problems of theory to an interpretation of the nature of empirical method in the social sciences. In presenting his own ideas, Giddens mounts a critical attack on some of the more orthodox sociological views. The Constitution of Society is an invaluable reference book for all those concerned with the basic issues in contemporary social theory.

"It is likely that this book will be regarded as the most important piece of grand sociological theory in English of the past decade."—Mark Poster, University of California "This book will take its place alongside such major statements of sociological theory as those of Parsons and Habermas. Anyone interested int eh state of the social sciences today, the character of social theory or the relevance of philosophy to social theory will now find it essential to grapple with Giddens's bold and incisive book."—Richard Bernstein, Haverford College, USA "Anthony Giddens's new book is the fullest presentation yet of his theoretical views . . . . it has the lean, sparse, utterly serious, craftsmanlike qualities we have learned to expect from its author and which make it a real pleasure to read."—Dennis Wrong, Times Higher Education Supplement

Edward Shils's attempt to work out a macrosociological theory which does justice both to the spiritual and intellectual dispositions and powers of the mind and to the reality of the larger society is an enterprise that has spanned several decades. In his steps toward the development of this theory he has not proceeded deductively; rather he has worked from his own concrete observations of Western, Asian, and African societies. Thus, despite the inevitable abstractness of marcrosociological theory, the papers in this volume—which have been published separately since the Second World War—have a quality of vivid substantiality that makes the theoretical statements they present easier to comprehend. Professor Shils has attempted to develop a theory that has a place for more than those parts of society that are generated from the biological nature of human beings and those parts that are engendered by the desires of individuals, acting for themselves or for groups and categories of individuals, to maintain and increase their power over other human beings and to secure material goods and services for themselves. He has argued that there are constituents of society in which human beings seek and cultivate connections with objects that transcend those needed to satisfy biological necessity and the desire for material objects and power over others. This third stratum of social existence, he concludes, cannot be reduced to the other two and cannot be disregarded in any serious attempt to understand the function of any society. Thus Edward Shils, without disregarding its many valuable achievements, has nevertheless parted ways with much of modern sociology. For this collection of papers the author has written an introductory intellectual autobiography that places each essay in the setting of the development of his thought and that connects it with his other writings.

What are individual rights? What is freedom? How are they related to each other? Why are they so crucial to human life? How do you protect them? These are some of the questions that A Declaration and Constitution for a Free Society answers. The book uses Objectivist philosophy—the philosophy of Ayn Rand—to analyze subjective, intrinsic, and objective theories of rights and show why rights and freedom are objective necessities of human life. This knowledge is then used to make changes to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Through these changes, the book shows the fundamental legal requirements of a free society and why we should create such a society. It demonstrates why a free society is morally, politically, and economically beneficial to human beings.

Lectures at a spring 1987 symposium held at DePauw University with the theme "the meaning of membership in a constitutional order requiring.

An investigation into the foundations of democratic societies and the ongoing struggle over the power of concentrated wealth Much of our politics today, Paul Starr writes, is a struggle over entrenchment—efforts to bring about change in ways that opponents will find difficult to undo. That is why the stakes of contemporary politics are so high. In this wide-ranging book, Starr examines how changes at the foundations of society become hard to reverse—yet sometimes are overturned. Overcoming aristocratic power was the formative problem for eighteenth-century revolutions. Overcoming slavery was the central problem for early American democracy. Controlling the power of concentrated wealth has been an ongoing struggle in the world’s capitalist democracies. The battles continue today in the troubled democracies of our time, with the rise of both oligarchy and populist nationalism and the danger that illiberal forces will entrench themselves in power. Entrenchment raises fundamental questions about the origins of our institutions and urgent questions about the future.

This book presents an exploratory account of the origins and dynamics of cities. The author recounts how the essential foundations of the urbanization process reside in two interrelated forces. These are the tendency for many different kinds of human activity to gather together to form functional complexes on the landscape, and the multifaceted intra-urban space-sorting crosscurrents set in motion by this primary urge. From these basic points of departure, the city in all its fullness emerges as a reflexive moment in social and economic development. The argument of the book is pursued both in theoretical and in empirical terms, devoting attention to the changing character of urbanization in the capitalist era. A point of particular emphasis concerns the peculiar patterns of resurgent urbanization that are making their historical and geographical appearance in the currently emerging phase of cognitive-cultural capitalism and that are now rapidly diffusing across the globe.