Social theory an antiindividualist story

Authors: Steven Lukes

Publish Date: 2013/10/19

Volume: 42, Issue: 6, Pages: 653-657

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Abstract

Prospective readers of this impressive work should not let its subtitle fool them Its “twenty introductory lectures” are not for the uninitiated This is an introduction rather for the relatively advanced student—and not only the student—who already knows enough sociology philosophy of science and European history including the history of ideas to benefit from the subtleties and sophistication of its analyses and attempt at synthesis It is at once a work of pedagogy and of scholarship It also has an agenda arguing for a particular vision of social theorizing and thus against others It is moreover concerned only with contemporary theory post1945 referring only tangentially to classical worksAs a pedagogical instrument it is not a textbook in the conventional sense As Jeff Manza and his coauthors have recently shown1most sociology textbooks are constructed in strikingly formulaic ways almost invariably reproducing identical longsuperseded classifications They

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