Modern social thought ranges widely from the social sciences to philosophy, political theories and doctrines, cultural ideas and movements, and the influence of the natural sciences.

• Provides an authoritative overview of the main themes of social thought.
• Long essays and entries give full coverage to each topic.
• Covers major currents of thought, philosophical and cultural trends, and the individual social sciences from anthropology to welfare economics.
• New edition updates about 200 entries and includes new entries, suggestions for further reading, and a bibliography of all sources cited within the text.

William Outhwaite is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Understanding Social Life: The Method Called Verstehen (second edition, 1986), Concept Formation in Social Science (1983), New Philosophies of Social Science: Realism, Hermeneutics and Critical Theory (1987), and Habermas: A Critical Introduction (1994). He edited The Habermas Reader (1996), The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought (with Tom Bottomore, 1993) and The Sociology of Politics (with Luke Martell, 1998).