Political Sociology, Sociology - General & Miscellaneous, Sociology of Religion, Sociology - History

For Weber

Name: For Weber
Author: Bryan S. Turner
ISBN: 9780803976337

by Turner, Bryan S.

Write a review

Overview

Available in paperback for the first time, For Weber: Essays on the Sociology of Fate is widely recognised as one of the most incisive and stimulating books on Weber in the post-war period. Written as a defence of Max Weber's sociology against the criticisms of academic sociology by Marxists such as Louis Althusser, the author rejects the view that Weber's sociology is bourgeois, subjectivist and individualistic. He examines a major theme in Weber's historical sociology, namely the unintended consequences (fate) of social action. The theme of the fatefulness of capitalist civilisation was derived from Nietzsche's critical enquiry into the condition of modern society. Turner illustrates this theme in a series of chapters on religion, medicine, law, feudalism, the family and the capitalist economy. He also provides a survey of the strengths and weaknesses of the major sociological approaches in the postwar period. This long-awaited paperback edition contains a major new introduction reviewing the scholarship on Weber since 1981. Among the subjects it covers are the fall of communism, the demise of Marxist theory and the rise of postmodernism. Without doubt, Turner is one of the world's leading Weberian scholars and this book provides students of sociology and social theory with his most comprehensive and accessible discussions of the richness and relevance of Weber's sociology for contemporary social theory.

About the Author, Bryan S. Turner

Bryan S. Turner is one of the world’s leading sociologists of religion; he has also devoted significant attention to sociological theory, the study of human rights, and the sociology of the body. In Vulnerability and Human Rights (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), he presents an interdisciplinary dialogue with the literature of economics, law, medicine, philosophy, political science, and religion. His current research involves the role of religion in contemporary Asia and the changing nature of citizenship in a globalizing world. Turner has written, coauthored, or edited more than seventy books and more than two hundred articles and chapters. The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory (Sage, 2008), first published in 1984, is in its third edition. He is also an author or editor of The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology, The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, and The Sage Handbook of Sociology. He is a founding editor of the journals Body & Society, Citizenship Studies, and Journal of Classical Sociology. Turner comes to the GC from Wellesley College, where he was Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor; he is also professor of social and political thought at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Leeds and has been awarded the Doctor of Letters from both Flinders University in South Australia and the University of Cambridge.