The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems – both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

Challenges the traditional rhetorical canon.

Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard.

First published in 1978, The End of Tradition is the history of four Surrey villages, the Horsleys and Clandons, close to London but isolated and protected from it by the Green Belt. Towards the end of the last century, a period of rapid change began in rural England as a new way of life centred on the nearby towns and cities replaced a traditional rural village life. Estates were broken up, agricultural life declined, village schools and parish councils were set up, and the pervasive influence of the village squire disappeared. But the coming of the railway, and later the motor car, provoked the most fundamental changes, for the isolation of the village was ended. The railway linked the villages of Surrey with London. In exclusive housing estates of detached homes in culs-de-sac, the exceptionally high status of the village was enhanced by the efforts of the newcomers to protect their new style of life through the most comprehensive countryside protection system in Britain. This is a must read for students and scholars interested in British history and sociology.

A portrait of one of America's most profound and honest thinkers, this book combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary to illuminate Berry as he is: a complex man of place and community with a depth of domestic, intellectual, filial, and fraternal attributes.

George's Progress and Poverty, Bellamy's Looking Backward, and Lloyd's Wealth against Commonwealth championed a national policy allied neither with large-scale capitalism, nor with bureaucratic socialism. Through vivid portraits of these journalists, Thomas traces the evolving ideologies of the most significant reformers of their age.

The major purpose of this book is to illustrate and explain the fundamental similarities and correspondences between humankind's oldest and newest thought-technologies: oral tradition and the Internet. Despite superficial differences, both technologies are radically alike in depending not on static products but rather on continuous processes, not on "What?" but on "How do I get there?" In contrast to the fixed spatial organization of the page and book, the technologies of oral tradition and the Internet mime the way we think by processing along pathways within a network. In both media it's pathways--not things--that matter. To illustrate these ideas, this volume is designed as a "morphing book," a collection of linked nodes that can be read in innumerable different ways. Doing nothing less fundamental than challenging the default medium of the linear book and page and all that they entail, Oral Tradition and the Internet shows readers that there are large, complex, wholly viable, alternative worlds of media-technology out there--if only they are willing to explore, to think outside the usual, culturally constructed categories. This "brick-and-mortar" book exists as an extension of The Pathways Project (http://pathwaysproject.org), an open-access online suite of chapter-nodes, linked websites, and multimedia all dedicated to exploring and demonstrating the dynamic relationship between oral tradition and Internet technology

This book explores the idea of social class in the liberal tradition. It collects classical and contemporary texts illustrating and examining the liberal origins of class analysis—often associated with Marxism but actually rooted in the work of liberal theorists. Liberal class analysis emphasizes the constitutive connection between state power and class position. Social Class and State Power documents the rich tradition of liberal class theory, its rediscovery in the twentieth century, and the possibilities it opens up for research in the new millenium.

Explores the history, significance, and future of tradition as a whole. This book reveals the importance of tradition to social and political institutions, technology, science, literature, religion, and scholarship.