Thinking the Unthinkable: The Riddles of Classical Social Theories / Edition 1

by Charles C. Lemert

Overview

In the eloquent style for which he has become famous, Charles Lemert writes of social theory as no one else. Thinking the Unthinkable is offered as text for instruction, yet it defies the prevailing assumption that social theory is a method for clarifying the facts of social life. Lemert shows how social theory began late in the 19th century as a struggle to come to terms with the failure of modern reason to solve the social problems created by the capitalist world-system. Since then, social theory has developed through twists and turns to think and rethink this Unthinkable. Hence the surprising innovations of recent years-postmodern, queer, postcolonial, third-wave feminist, risk theories, among others arising in the wake of globalization. Once again, Lemert has made the difficult clear in a book that students and other readers will treasure and keep.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594511868
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/15/2007
Series:	Great Barrington Bks.
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Charles Lemert is Senior Fellow in the Center for Comparative Research, Yale University, and Vice-Chancellor's Professorial Fellow, University of South Australia, Adelaide. He is the author of numerous books including Uncertain Worlds, with Immanuel Wallerstein and Carlos Rojas, and Thinking the Unthinkable.

Table of Contents

Part I What Is Social Theory?; Chapter 1 The Impossible Reasons of Modern Civilizations; Chapter 2 Social Theory and Modernity’s Unthinkable; Chapter 3 Social Violence as the Bead Lust of the Unthinkable; Chapter 4 Five Ways to Skin a Cat; Part II Unthinkable Social Things; Chapter 5 Revolutionary Reasons; Chapter 6 Rationality’s Double-Bind; Chapter 7 The Reasonable Hope of a Social Bond; Chapter 8 Perverse Reasons; Chapter 9 Unreasonable Differences; Part III The Exiled Others Think the Unthinkable; Chapter 10 Beyond the Double-Bind; Chapter 11 A Revolutionary Social Bond; Chapter 12 The Strange Social Benefits of Conflict; Chapter 13 The Social Structure of Meanings; Chapter 14 The Unfolding of Social Theory in the Unraveling of the Twentieth Century into the Twenty-First;

Editorial Reviews

An often profound, sometimes melancholic, and always elegant meditation on classical social theory, which is defined, according to Lemert, by its courageous and insistent effort to comprehend the irrationality that has threatened modern humankind.”
—Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University

“Charles Lemert has already given sociologists great books that have profoundly changed how we teach social theory. He has done it again. With Thinking the Unthinkable he offers a concise but rich review of the riddles that engaged classical social theorists and which confront us still today. The reader is introduced to a diverse group of classical social theorists, given a sense of the expanse of their thought and a taste of their writings. There even is a glossary of the most important of their concepts. Just right for the classroom. Just right for these times.”
—Patricia Ticineto Clough, Queens College and The Graduate Center - CUNY

“Vintage Lemert. There is sophistication underlying his literary flair for down to earth writing. This book is an erudite and engaging meditation on the lessons Lemert has derived from his sustained engagement with a diverse array of writers who have changed how we think about social things.”
—Peter Kivisto, Augustana College

From the Publisher