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Winner of the American Sociological Association's 'Distinguished Book Award' in the Religion category. For most of us, "Apocalypse" suggests the cataclysmic end of the world. Yet in Greek "apocalypse" means "revelation," and the real subject of the Book of Revelation is how the sacred arises in history at a moment of crisis and destiny. With origins in ancient religions, the apocalyptic has been a transformative force from the time of the Crusades, through the Reformation, the French Revolution and modern communism, all the way to the present day "Islamic Jihad" and "War on Terror." In Ap

This book examines the key institutional structures and processes of modernity. Combining historical insight with sustained political and social analysis, Hall analyses the form and character of capitalism, war, late development, civil society and the the causes and collapse of socialism and addesses the revival of nationalism and the possibilities of democratization

This book examines the different ways in which order has been achieved in world affairs with a view to understanding current political dilemmas and opportunities. International Ordersbegins by distinguishing between world order and international order in the spirit of Hedley Bull. This leads to an analysis of five different principles of international order - the principles of the balance of power, the concert of great powers, liberal regimes, interdependence, and the exercise of hegemony. However, principles of international order are rarely simply clear cut in their operations, they

Cultures of Inquiry provides a unique overview of research methodologies in social science, historical and cultural studies. Describing eight interconnected methodologies that transcend present-day disciplinary and interdisciplinary boundaries, it moves beyond the objectivism/relativism debate in the philosophy and sociology of knowledge by showing how alternative research practices are formed

The twelve essays in this volume propose new directions in the analysis of class. John R. Hall argues that recent historical and intellectual developments require reworking basic assumptions about classes and their dynamics. The approaches developed by the contributors effectively abandon the notion of a transcendent class struggle. They seek instead to understand the historically contingent ways in which economic interests are pursued under institutionally, socially, and culturally structured circumstances. In his introduction, Hall proposes a neo-Weberian venue intended to bring the most promising contemporary approaches to class analysis into productive exchange with one another. The chapters that follow address a wide range of issues concerning class

En diciembre de 2016, lo que el propio Zygmunt Bauman describió como una "insuficiencia cardíaca reciente" no impidió que me entregara "tres bosquejos de artículos" para el capítulo sobre Bauman que estaba preparando para la segunda edición del Handbook of Cultural Sociology. A partir de esta experiencia con Bauman, quien se encontraba al final de su vida, presento una reflexión sobre él como persona, académico e intelectual público. Bauman tenía una vasta estrategia metodológica, derivada de su libro escrito en 1978, Hermeneutics and the Social Sciences. Reconciliándose con la relatividad historicista del círculo hermenéutico de Gadamer, Bauman propuso que la autocomprensión hermenéutica de la sociedad "es el modo como la propia historia avanza" (Bauman, 1978: 46). Vinculo dicho proyecto hermenéutico con la conceptualización de "modernidad líquida" de Bauman, como la condición de la sociedad contemporánea, y basado en sus tres "bosquejos" de artículos explico la forma como relacionó ciertas situaciones "líquidas" contemporáneas -en particular, cambios en el carácter de la migración- con acontecimientos políticos recientes (el Brexit y la elección de Donald Trump como presidente de Estados Unidos). Según Bauman, el objetivo de que exista tolerancia cosmopolita en una sociedad global es impedido por el desfase entre las nuevas condiciones mundiales y una "conciencia anticuada".