Polity imprint: 1443 books

One of the most prolific and respected scholars today, Manuel Castells has given us a new language for understanding the impact of information and communication technologies on social life. Politicians can no longer run for office without a digital media strategy, new communication technologies...

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to maintain a 'line' to demarcate them. The view persists...

Since 9/11, the American government has presumed to speak and act in the name of ‘civilization’. But isthat how the rest of the world sees it? And if not, why not? Stephen Mennell leads up to such contemporary questions through a careful study of the whole span of American development,...

We all need food to survive, and forty percent of the world's population relies on agriculture for their livelihood. Yet control over food is concentrated in relatively few hands. Turmoil in the world food economy over the past decade - including the food price crisis, intensification of land grabs,...

Class is not only amongst the oldest and most controversial of all concepts in social science, but a topic which has fascinated, amused, incensed and galvanized the general public, too. But what exactly is a ‘class’? How do sociologists study and measure it, and how does it correspond to everyday...

Market Society provides an original and accessible review of changing conceptions of the market in modern social thought. The book considers markets as social institutions rather than simply formal models, arguing that modern ideas of the market are based on critical notions of social order, social...

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has stirred passions like no other trade negotiation in recent history. Its supporters maintain that TTIP will produce spectacular growth and job creation; claims that are wholeheartedly rejected by its critics, who regard TTIP as a direct...

Oil pulses through our daily lives. It is the plastic we touch, the food we eat, and the way we move. Oil politics in the twentieth century was about the management of abundance, state power, and market growth. The legacy of this age of plenty includes declining conventional oil reserves, volatile...

In a world of dwindling natural resources and mounting environmental crisis, who is devising ways of living that will work for the long haul? And how can we, as individuals, make a difference? To answer these fundamental questions, Professor Karen Litfin embarked upon a journey to many of the world’s...

This popular and engaging text, now revised in a second edition, offers readers a social perspective on food, food practices, and the modern food system. It engages readers' curiosity by highlighting several paradoxes: how food is both individual and social, reveals both distinction and conformity,...

This book gives a radically new reading of Russia’s cultural history. Alexander Etkind traces how the Russian Empire conquered foreign territories and domesticated its own heartlands, thereby colonizing many peoples, Russians included. This vision of colonization as simultaneously internal and external,...

This new book provides an accessible and wide-ranging introduction to the main features of Chinese society. Drawing on a wealth of material, the author offers a fresh understanding of a unique society that has undergone continuous transformation and upheaval throughout the twentieth century. Understanding...

In the space of another generation, the population of the earth will rise by 2.5 billion. Yet the real problem we face is not so much the increase in numbers as the fact that growth will be highly uneven. Whereas rich countries will see aging populations with little growth, populations in poor countries...

Our lives have gradually become dominated by markets. They are not only at the heart of capitalistic economies all over the world, but also central in public debates. This insightful book brings together existing knowledge on markets from sociology, economics and anthropology, and systematically investigates...