In this ground-breaking contribution to social theory, John Urry argues that the traditional basis of sociology - the study of society - is outmoded in an increasingly borderless world. If sociology is to make a pertinent contribution to the post societal era it must forget the social rigidities of the pre-global order and, instead, switch its focus to the study of both physical and virtual movement. In considering this sociology of mobilities, the book concerns itself with the travels of people, ideas, images, messages, waste products and money across international borders, and the implications these mobilities have to our experiences of time, space, dwelling and citizenship. Sociology Beyond Society extends recent debate about globalisation both by providing an analysis of how mobilities reconstitute social life in uneven and complex ways, and by arguing for the significance of objects, senses, and time and space in the theorising of contemporary life. This book will be essential reading for undergraduates and graduates studying sociology and cultural geography.

This book explores the contours of a transformational sociology which seeks to reconsider the horizons of sociological imagination. It questions accepted modernist assumptions such as the equation of society and nation-state, the dualism of individual and society and that of ontology and epistemology. Arguing that contemporary sociology suffers from what Ulrich Beck calls the Nato-like fire power of western sociology, it argues that sociology has to open itself to transcivilizational dialogues and planetary conversations about self, culture and society. The book also challenges scholars to go beyond a privileging of the post-traditional telos of modernist sociology and puts forward a foundational interrogation of modernist sociology. It underscores the limitations of established conventions of sociology and considering an alternative sociology based upon Confucian vision and practice of self-transformation. This collection offers a way to go beyond dominant structures of modern sociology and contemporary dominant ways of thinking about and doing sociology helping us cultivate a transdisciplinary sociology.

Bringing together the leading authors currently working at the intersection of social science and transport science, this volume provides a companion to the well-established and extensive international Transport and Society series. Each chapter, and the volume as a whole, offers closer and richer consideration of the issues, practices and structures of multiple mobilities which shape the current world but which have typically been overlooked or minimised. What this approach seeks to do is not only draw attention to many new areas of research and investigation relating to mobile lives, but also to point to new theories and methods by which such lives have to be researched and examined. Such new theories and methods are relevant both to rethinking 'transport' studies as such but are also recasting 'societal' studies as 'transport' so that it comes out of the ghetto and enters mainstream social science.

"With just the right level of detail, and a graphically innovative approach, this book carefully guides students through the statistical techniques they will encounter in the real world. The basics, plus multiple regression, interaction effects, logistic regression, non-linear effects, all covered in a non-intimidating way for your students. The book uses three datasets throughout: General Social Survey, American National Election Studies, World Values Survey, and includes SPSS demonstrations at the end of each chapter. Most of your students will likely take only one stats course and use only one stats book in their college careers. This one innovatively equips them for their worlds ahead, regardless of the career paths they follow."--Page [i].

This book expands the sociological canon by introducing non-Western and female voices, and subjects the existing canon itself to critique. Including chapters on both the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology and neglected thinkers it highlights the biases of Eurocentrism and androcentrism, while also offering much-needed correctives to them. The authors challenge a dominant account of the development of sociological theory which would have us believe that it was only Western European and later North American white males in the nineteenth and early twentieth century who thought in a creative and systematic manner about the origins and nature of the emerging modernity of their time. This integrated and contextualised account seeks to restructure the ways in which we theorise the emergence of the classical sociological canon. This book’s global scope fills a significant lacuna and provides a unique teaching resource to students of classical sociological theory.

Conceived as a response to the economic naïvety and implicit metropolitan bias of many 1950s and 60s studies of ‘the sociology of development’ , this volume, first published in 1975, provides actual field studies and theoretical reviews to indicate the directions which a conceptually more adequate study of developing societies should take. Much of the book reflects strongly the influence of Andre Gunder Frank, but the contributors adopt a critical attitude to his ideas, applying them in empirical situations within such African and American countries as Kenya, Guyana, Tanzania and Peru. Others pursue the lines of enquiry opened up by Latin American theories of economic ‘dependency’ and by the new school of French economic anthropology.

Classical Sociology Beyond Methodological Nationalism defends classical sociology from the accusation of ‘methodological nationalism’. To reject such accusation, the volume presents three arguments. The first contends that classical sociology has not failed to deal with the global world (Part I). The second, that classical sociology has more frequently dealt with the transnational category of the ‘social’, rather than with the ‘national’ (Part II). The third, that where classical sociology has analysed national society, the latter has never been envisaged as a rigidly confined entity within its political boundaries (Part III). The outcome is a re-evaluation of classical sociological thought as a more functional tool for analysing the political forms of modernity in the era of globalisation. Contributors include: Vittorio Cotesta, David Inglis, Austin Harrington, Massimo Pendenza, Michael Schillmeier, Emanuela Susca, Dario Verderame, and Federico Trocini.

The most up-to-date analysis of today's immigration issues. As the authors state in Chapter 1, "the movement of people across national borders represents one of the most vivid dramas of social reality in the contemporary world." This comparative text examines contemporary immigration across the globe, focusing on 20 major nations. Key features include: * comprehensive coverage of topics not covered in other texts * a global portrait of contemporary immigration, including a demographic overview of today's cross-border movers * critical assessments of the achievements of the field to date * encourages students to rethink traditional views about the distinction between citizen and alien

Published in association with the ISA, and part of the SAGE Studies in International Sociology series, this is a passionate and stimulating exploration of how the work of Georg Simmel can help revitalise and focus the aims of sociology today.