Polity imprint: 1443 books

This revised edition of Pip Jones's extremely popular introduction to social theory, now benefiting from the collaboration of Shaun Le Boutillier and Liz Bradbury, has been carefully and thoroughly updated with the latest developments in this continually changing field. Written in a refreshingly lucid...

This is one of the first systematic discussions of the nature of trust as a means of social cohesion, discussing the works of leading social theorists on the issue of social solidarity.

Theories of Globalization offers students and scholars a comprehensive and critical introduction to the concept of globalization. Barrie Axford expertly guides readers through the full range of perspectives on the topic, from international political economy to geography, global anthropology to cultural...

Over-consumption is one of the key issues of our time, especially in the Western world. Over the past decade, in the face of historically unprecedented levels of consumer spending in the West - and the more recent impact of recession - a vigorous politics of anti-consumerism has emerged in a range...

Inequality in its many forms is becoming an ever greater problem in modern society. The revised edition of this popular book explains why it is so important to understand class and stratification, and how the tools used to analyse these divisions can help us to understand and confront problems of...

The global financial crisis has shattered the illusion that all was well with capitalism and forced us to confront the great challenges we face today with a new sense of urgency. Few are better placed to do this than Zygmunt Bauman, a social thinker whose writings on liquid modernity have pioneered...

This book is about the global crisis and the right to resistance, about neoliberal biopolitics and direct democracy, about the responsibility of intellectuals and the poetry of the multitude. Using Greece as an example, Douzinas argues that the persistent sequence of protests, uprisings and revolutions...

It is now conventional wisdom to see the great policy challenges of the 21st century as inherently transnational. It is equally common to note the failures of the international institutions the world relies on to address such challenges. As the acclaimed 2013 book Gridlock argued, the world increasingly...

With many predicting the end of US hegemony, Russia and China's growing cooperation in a number of key strategic areas looks set to have a major impact on global power dynamics. But what lies behind this Sino-Russian rapprochement? Is it simply the result of deteriorated Russo–US and Sino–US relations...

There is a specter haunting advanced industrial countries: structural unemployment. Recent years have seen growing concern over declining jobs, and though corporate profits have picked up after the Great Recession of 2008, jobs have not. It is possible that “jobless recoveries” could become a...

With some 50 million people living under duress and threatened by wars and disasters in 2012, the demand for relief worldwide has reached unprecedented levels. Humanitarianism is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and aid agencies are obliged to respond to a range of economic forces in order to...

National security intelligence is a vast, complex, and important topic, made doubly hard for citizens to understand because of the thick veils of secrecy that surround it. In the second edition of his definitive introduction to the field, leading intelligence expert Loch K. Johnson guides readers...

This short book offers a clear and engaging introduction to the history of humankind, from the earliest movements of people to the contemporary epoch of globalization. Cowen traces this complex history in a manner which offers both a compelling narrative and an analytical and comparative treatment....

The lifestyle, economic basis and political affiliations of the British upper class are the focus of this exciting new textbook. Combining a review of existing sociological theory on class and capitalism with material drawn from a great variety of sources it is likely to become a standard course text. Examining...