Polity imprint: 1443 books

Journalism, what happened? In the last decade, the industry and the profession have been rocked to the core. Newspapers as consumer product are as ripe for comic mocking and satire as are the techniques of the journalism profession. The contemporary death and life of journalism is the story of an...

This new book by Beate Rössler is a work of real quality and originality on an extremely topical issue: the issue of privacy and the relations between the private and the public. Rössler investigates the reasons why we value privacy and why we ought to value it. In the context of modern,...

The Sociology of Consumption: A Global Approach offers college students, scholars, and interested readers a state-of-the-art overview of consumption the desire for, purchase, use, display, exchange, and disposal of goods and services. The book’s global focus, emphasis on social inequality,...

Family Support introduces and explores the state of the art in preventative social work with children and young people. Drawing on contemporary thinking and research, the book aims to make a contribution to current debates about how we can best support families in need. Underpinning the book...

In a world of high finance, unprecedented technological change, and cyber billionaires, it is easy to forget that a major source of global wealth is, literally, right under our noses. Coffee is one of the most valuable Southern exports, generating billions of dollars in corporate profits each year,...

Paparazzi photography has emerged as a key element in today’s media landscape. This book charts the historical and cultural significance of the industry, profiles its protagonists and discusses how its imagery of celebrity have become a major part of media consumption. Kim McNamara examines...

In this lively and accessible book, Matt Matravers considers the role of responsibility in politics, morality and the law. In recent years, responsibility has taken a central place in our lives. In politics, both Tony Blair and George W. Bush have claimed that individual responsibility is at the centre...

Mediated Intimacy looks at contemporary sex and relationship advice, exploring how our intimate lives are shaped through different media, from manuals and magazines to television and Twitter. By exploring how intimacy is constructed through different media texts, the authors consider which ideas and...

In recent years culture has become the primary currency of politics – from the identity politics that characterized the 2016 American election to the pushback against Western universalism in much of the non-Western world. Much less noticed is the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational...

Global climate change poses an unprecedented challenge for governments across the world. Small wonder that many experts question whether democracies have the ability to cope with the causes and long-term consequences of a changing climate. Some even argue that authoritarian regimes are better equipped...

Long regarded as an empty and inhospitable environment, the deep ocean is rapidly emerging as an ecological hot spot with a remarkable diversity of biological life. Yet, the world's oceans are currently on a dangerous trajectory of decline, threatened by acidification, oil and gas drilling, overfishing,...

We celebrate, talk about, and worry a great deal about transitions in life. Going to college, having a first child, losing a job, and retiring constitute just a few of the pivotal moments in the lives of many. Sociologists and psychologists have devoted considerable attention to life transitions....

As the twenty-first century unfolds, computers challenge the way in which we think about culture, society and what it is to be human: areas traditionally explored by the humanities. In a world of automation, Big Data, algorithms, Google searches, digital archives, real-time streams and social...

This book introduces green ideas to students of the social sciences, showing how society affects and is affected by nature and assessing the future of the green movement.