Polity imprint: 1443 books

Where are the women? In traditional historical and scholarly accounts of the making and fighting of wars, women are often nowhere to be seen. With few exceptions, war stories are told as if men were the only ones who plan, fight, are injured by, and negotiate ends to wars. As the pages of this book...

Preventing violent conflicts and establishing comprehensive lasting peace in some of the world’s most turbulent regions has become the new global imperative. But to be effective, peacebuilding must be a multilateral, not a unilateral process. Even for the world’s sole surviving superpower, promoting...

This inspirational book provides the backstory to current attempts by states and corporations to control the Internet. It explains key issues such as privacy, net neutrality and copyright in a way that is accessible to non-experts, as well as providing a clear, authoritative context for academic study. The...

In this stimulating book, William C. Cockerham, a leading medical sociologist, assesses the evidence that social factors (such as stress, poverty, unhealthy lifestyles, and unpleasant living and work conditions) have direct causal effects on health and many diseases. Noting a new emphasis upon...

The essential revision guide for AS and 1st-year A level Sociology from trusted and best-selling author Ken Browne. This indispensable book provides everything you need to revise for the exams, with a clear topic-by-topic layout to recap key theories and central ideas. The revision guide...

A global view of health offers a richer understanding of ways of measuring, improving and sustaining health both in individual national settings and in the context of a strongly interconnected world. This book draws on social scientific insights and explanations to examine trends in global health....

Journalists have failed to respond adequately to the challenge of the Internet, with far-reaching consequences for the future of journalism and democracy. This is the compelling argument set forth in this timely new text, drawing on the most extensive ethnographic fieldwork in American newsrooms since...

Social theory is a crucial resource for the social sciences. It provides rich insights into how human beings think and act and how contemporary social life is constructed. But often the key ideas of social theorists are expressed in highly technical and difficult language that can hide more than it...

In this major new work, Thompson develops an original account of ideology and relates it to the analysis of culture and mass communication in modern Societies. Thompson offers a concise and critical appraisal of major contributions to the theory of ideology, from Marx and Mannheim, to Horkheimer,...

Bob Jessop presents an up-to-date account of his distinctive approach to the dialectics of structure and strategy in the exercise of state power. While his earlier work critically surveys other state theories, this book focuses on the development of his own strategic-relational approach. It introduces...

We live in a modern age, but what does ‘modern’ mean and how can a reflection on ‘modernity’ help us to understand the world today? These are the questions that Peter Wagner sets out to answer in this concise and accessible book. Wagner begins by returning to the question of modernity's...

Debates about the role and nature of the state are at the heart of modern politics. However, the state itself remains notoriously difficult to define, and the term is subject to a range of different interpretations. In this book, distinguished state theorist Bob Jessop provides a critical introduction...

The Inclusion of the Other contains Habermas's most recent work in political theory and political philosophy. Here Habermas picks up some of the central themes of Between Facts and Norms and elaborates them in relation to current political debates. One of the distinctive features of Habermas's...

Globalization has been contested in recent times. Among the critical perspectives is cosmopolitanism. Yet, with the exception of normative theory, international relations as a field has ignored cosmopolitan thinking. This book redresses this gap and develops a dialogue between cosmopolitanism and...