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This interdisciplinary reference work presents a linked consideration, to the reader, of physical- cultural (physicocultural) representations of headstones located in urban churchyards in England and Scotland. The geomorphology of landscapes relevant to these locations is explained with the help of detailed case studies from Oxford and Edinburgh. The integrated physicocultural approach addresses the conservation of the archaeological record and presents...

This first volume of Niklas Luhmann's two-part final work was initially published in German in 1997. The culmination of his thirty-year theoretical project to reconceptualize sociology, it offers a comprehensive description of modern society on a scale not attempted since Talcott Parsons. Beginning with an account of the fluidity of meaning and the accordingly high improbability of successful communication, Luhmann analyzes a range of communicative...

Gang violence is on the increase in certain neighborhoods. There is an urgent need for a fresh perspective that offers insight into gang structure, organization and offending behavior to explain this increase. Using the findings from an extensive ethnographic study of local residents, professionals and gang members in south London, and drawing on his vast experience and knowledge of the field, Simon Harding proposes a unique theoretical perspective...

The Rewards of Punishment describes a new social theory of norms to provide a compelling explanation why people punish. Identifying mechanisms that link interdependence with norm enforcement, it reveals how social relationships lead individuals to enforce norms, even when doing so makes little sense. This groundbreaking book tells the whole story, from ideas, to experiments, to real-world applications. In addition to addressing longstanding theoretical...

Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we...

"What is feminism? In this short, accessible primer, bell hooks explores the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. With her characteristic clarity and directness, hooks encourages readers to see how feminism can touch and change their lives--to see that feminism is for everybody"-- Provided by publisher.

What do we mean when we talk about "the economy" and "economic activity"? How we answer that question and the tools we reach for to analyse it, shape how we study it and how we are defined as practitioners. Conventional economic thought and talk see the economy as the sum of market transactions carried out by rational individuals deciding how to allocate their resources among the various things on offer that would satisfy their desires. Economic anthropologists...

"The term "Islamophobia" may be fairly new, but irrational fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims is anything but. Though many speak of Islamophobia's roots in racism, have we considered how anti-Muslim rhetoric is rooted in our legal system? Using his unique lens as a critical race theorist and law professor, Khaled A. Beydoun captures the many ways in which law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the frightening resurgence of Islamophobia...

John A. Hall is the James McGill Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology at McGill University. How civility has shaped and been shaped by historical and social forces, and why it is in danger today Civility is desirable and possible, but can this fragile ideal be guaranteed? The Importance of Being Civil offers the most comprehensive look at the nature and advantages of civility throughout history and in our world today. Esteemed sociologist...

During the 1920s a new generation of American sociologists tried to make their discipline more objective by adopting the methodology of the natural sciences. Robert Bannister provides the first comprehensive account of the emergence of this "objectivism" within the matrix of the evolutionism of Lester Ward and other founders of American sociology.Objectivism meant confining inquiry to the observable externals of social behavior and quantifying the...