In 1952, a terminally ill Harold Innis asked his closest intellectual confidant, Tom Easterbrook, to teach his signature course on communications on his behalf. With Innis’s premature death, the course turned out to be both Innis’s final course and the first course on Innis.Alongside Edward Comor’s detailed Introduction, Easterbrook’s previously unknown lectures clarify aspects of Innisian scholarship that have been obscured, neglected, or forgotten. These include Easterbr...

**An expanded edition of the classic study on the history of capitalism—“a must read” for students of political theory and anyone interested in economic thought (Choice)How did the dynamic economic system we know as capitalism develop among the peasants and lords of feudal Europe?**In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the theories and debates concernin...

In this provocative but balanced essay, Kenneth Minogue discusses the development of politics from the ancient world to the twentieth century. He prompts us to consider why political systems evolve, how politics offers both power and order in our society, whether democracy is always a good thing, and what future politics may have in the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subjec...

"In this wonderful book, Thomas Patterson effectively dethrones the concept of 'civilization' as an abstract good, transcending human society."--Martin BernalDrawing on his extensive knowledge of early societies, Thomas C. Patterson shows how class, sexism, and racism have been integral to the appearance of "civilized" societies in Western Europe. He lays out clearly and simply how civilization, with its designs of "civilizing" and "being civilized," has been closely...

What are the origins of nationalism and why is it capable of arousing such intense emotions? In this major study, Azar Gat counters the prevailing fashionable theories according to which nations and nationalism are modern and contrived or 'invented'. He sweeps across history and around the globe to reveal that ethnicity has always been highly political and that nations and national states have existed since the beginning of statehood millennia ago. He traces the deep roots of ethnicity and...

The Social Animal is a classic investigation of human beings as social animals.The Social Animal is a short, wide-ranging, witty and accessible book that sets out the present extent of our knowledge about how human societies and institutions really work, and what motivates the people who live within them.W. G. Runciman’s superb book is a welcome corrective to the view that there are no societies, only collections of individuals and their families: he shows that wherever the...

What kinds of political arrangements enable people from different national, racial, religious, or ethnic groups to live together in peace? In this book one of the most influential political theorists of our time discusses the politics of toleration. Michael Walzer examines five "regimes of toleration"-from multinational empires to immigrant societies-and describes the strengths and weaknesses of each regime, as well as the varying forms of toleration and exclusion each fosters. Walzer show...

What does the Catholic Church teach about racism? What should Catholics think about Critical Race Theory, which is currently being widely promoted in the name of antiracismAll One in Christ lucidly explains the Church's clear and consistent condemnation of racism, showing that the condemnation is not a recent development but deeply rooted in centuries of papal teaching and Scholastic theology.This book also demonstrates that Critical Race Theory, far from being a r...

In this far-reaching work, social ecologist and historian Murray Bookchin takes the reader on a voyage through the evolution of the city. Cities are not just monumental social and political facts, they are tremendous ecological facts as well. Far from seeing them as an inherent adversary of the natural world, though, Bookchin uncovers a hidden history of cities as “eco-communities” that fostered diversity and interconnection, living in balance with and awareness of nature. Just as ecosyste...

Why, from the eighteenth century onwards, did some countries embark on a path of sustained economic growth, while others stagnated? This text looks at the kind of institutions that are required in order for change to take place, and Ringmar concludes that for sustained development to be possible, change must be institutionalized. Taking a global view, Ringmar investigates the implications of his conclusion on issues facing the developing world today.

Power and Privilege seeks to answer the central question of the field of social stratification: Who gets what and why? Using a dialectical view of the development of thought in the discipline, Gerhard Lenski describes the outlines of an emerging synthesis of theories. He shows that perspectives as diverse and contradictory as those of Marx, Spencer, Sumner, Veblen, Mosca, Pareto, Sorokin, Parsons, and Dahrendorf are parts of an evolving and systematic body of theory.

Concern with authority is as old as human history itself. Eve's sin was to challenge the authority of God by disobeying his rule. Frank Furedi explores how authority was contested in ancient Greece and given a powerful meaning in Imperial Rome. Debates about religious and secular authority dominated Europe through the Middle Ages and the Reformation. The modern world attempted to develop new foundations for authority – democratic consent, public opinion, science – yet Furedi shows that thi...