《后现代性下的生命与多重时间》是社会学家基思·特斯特反思后现代性、后现代性研究的一部力作。他在其中关注的是一些境况，是后现代性得以存在的利害关键和可能条件，而他主要取材于“世界的写作”，关注有关我们世界的神话/迷思，去探寻人们都靠着哪些故事，来做出妥协，为实际活动提供理据，并使挫败可以接受。
或许可以把后现代性看作是人类历史的巅峰，不仅如此，还像是自哲学诞生以来被人们不顾一切、满怀期冀地表达的所有那些希望和雄心的终极实现。只要毫不理会前历史性人群和历史性人群破败不堪的残余，任他们隐约闪现着后现代性金碧辉煌的拱廊街外，这时候，仿佛这个世界已经最终获得了完满清晰 的呈现。
人们不再有需要，不再有不适，但同时那也意味着，不再有希望。
过一种后现代的日子，就是要活在一种无视之中，无视现代性的教益，尤其是卡夫卡的教益：希望的前提条件就在于，所希望的东西必然是无法抵达的。活出后现代的生命，就是要活在一种真理之中：其实，唯一比未能实现希望还要糟糕的事情，就是实现希望。

Experiments With People showcases 28 intriguing studies that have significantly advanced our understanding of human thought and social behavior. These studies, mostly laboratory experiments, shed light on the irrationality of everyday thinking, the cruelty and indifference of 'ordinary' people, the operation of the unconscious mind, and the intimate bond between the self and others. This book tells the inside story of how social psychological research gets done and why it matters. Each chapter focuses on the details and implications of a single study, but cites related research and real-life examples. All chapters are self-contained, allowing them to be read in any order. Each chapter is divided into: *Background--provides the rationale for the study; *What They Did--outlines the design and procedure used; *What They Found--summarizes the results obtained; *So What?--articulates the significance of those results; *Afterthoughts--explores the broader issues raised by the study; and *Revelation--encapsulates the 'take-home message' of each chapter. This paperback is ideal as a main or supplementary text for courses in social psychology, introductory psychology, or research design.

Linguistic relativity is the claim that culture, through language, affects the way in which we think, and especially our classification of the experienced world. This book reexamines ideas about linguistic relativity in the light of new evidence and changes in theoretical climate. Parts I and II address the classical issues in the relation between thought and language, and the extent of linguistic and cultural universals. Parts III and IV show how changes in our understanding of meaning require that we look at how context enters into interpretation, and how context is constituted in social interaction. The editors have provided a substantial introduction which examines changes in thinking about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the light of developments in anthropology, linguistics, and cognitive science; and also introductions to each section which will be of especial use to students.

China's food safety system is in crisis. Egregious scandals, as varied as the sale of liquor laced with Viagra and the distribution of fake eggs, reveal how regulatory practices have been stretched to their limit in the world's largest food production system. On Feeding the Masses focuses on the oft-cited but ultimately overlooked concept of scale to identify the root causes of China's regulatory failures in food safety. The 'politics of scale' framework highlights how regulators disagree on which level of government is best suited to regulate ('the scale of governance'), struggle to address multilevel tensions ('multidimensional scale integration'), and fail to understand how policies at one level of government can affect other levels of government in unexpected and costly ways ('scale externalities'). Drawing from over 200 interviews with food safety regulators and producers, the study provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of China's food safety crisis to date.

No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind. In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky, merely trendy, or ugly. Bourdicu bases his study on surveys that took into account the multitude of social factors that play a part in a Frenchperson's choice of clothing, furniture, leisure activities, dinner menus for guests, and many other matters of taste. What emerges from his analysis is that social snobbery is everywhere in the bourgeois world. The different aesthetic choices people make are all distinctions-that is, choices made in opposition to those made by other classes. Taste is not pure. Bourdieu finds a world of social meaning in the decision to order bouillabaisse, in our contemporary cult of thinness, in the "California sports" such as jogging and cross-country skiing. The social world, he argues, functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement. The topic of Bourdieu's book is a fascinating one: the strategies of social pretension are always curiously engaging. But the book is more than fascinating. It is a major contribution to current debates on the theory of culture and a challenge to the major theoretical schools in contemporary sociology.

Description
Combining a thorough introduction to the work of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Italian social theorist Vilfredo Pareto with a highly readable English translation of Pareto's last monograph "Generalizations," originally published in 1920, this work illustrates how and why democratic forms of government undergo decay and are eventually reinvigorated. More than any other social scientist of his generation, Pareto offers a well-developed, articulate, and compelling theory of change based on a Newtonian vision of science and an engineering model of social equilibrium.
This dynamic involves a shifting balance among the countervailing forces of centralization and decentralization of power, economic expansion and contraction, and liberalism versus traditionalism in public sentiment. By 1920, Pareto had developed a scheme for predicting shifts in magnitude of these forces and subsequent change in the character of society. This book will be of interest to students, teachers, or general readers interested in political science, sociology and late-nineteenth/ early-twentieth century social theory.
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was a pioneer in the field of econometrics, but gained fame, most of it posthumous, through his contributions to sociology and political science. Though often claimed by activist-rightist groups and a contributor to fascist thinking, he avoided alignment with any political movement.

"Of those who created the intellectual capital used to launch the enterprise of professional sociology, Georg Simmel was perhaps the most original and fecund. In search of a subject matter for sociology that would distinguish it from all other social sciences and humanistic disciplines, he charted a new field for discovery and proceeded to explore a world of novel topics in works that have guided and anticipated the thinking of generations of sociologists. Such distinctive concepts of contemporary sociology as social distance, marginality, urbanism as a way of life, role-playing, social behavior as exchange, conflict as an integrating process, dyadic encounter, circular interaction, reference groups as perspectives, and sociological ambivalence embody ideas which Simmel adumbrated more than six decades ago."--Donald N. Levine
Half of the material included in this edition of Simmel's writings represents new translations. This includes Simmel's important, lengthy, and previously untranslated "Group Expansion and Development of Individuality," as well as three selections from his most neglected work, "Philosophy of Money"; in addition, the introduction to "Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie," chapter one of the "Lebensanschauung," and three essays are translated for the first time.

《云南三村》是我国著名社会学家、人类学家费孝通先生和他的助手张之毅先生上世纪30 年代末40年代初在云南内地农村所作的调查报告，包括了《禄村农田》、《易村手工业》、《玉村农业和商业》。其中的“禄村”、“易村”、“玉村”分别是指禄丰、易门、玉溪的一个村庄。
进行这些调查的时候，正值“强敌压境，家乡沦陷”的抗战初期，“为什么一个所谓‘学成归乡的留学生’会一头就钻入农村里去做当时社会上没有人会叫好的社会调查？”费孝通先生在《云南三村》的序言里边问边答：“中国在抗战胜利之后还有一个更严重的问题要解决，那就是我们将建设成怎样一个国家。在抗日的战场上，我能出的力不多。但是为了解决那个更严重的问题，我有责任，用我学到的知识，多做一些准备工作。那就是科学地去认识中国社会。”
从费孝通先生的这段话里，我们清晰地读到了一个中国知识分子的社会责任感和使命感。为了这一目的，费孝通先生利用类型比较法，有的放矢地选择了中国农村的几种“类型”，进行调查、分析和比较，由一点到多点，由局部到全体，进而认识中国农村的整体面貌。在尝试了广西大瑶山调查和江苏太湖边上的江村调查之后，1938年至1942年，任教于云南大学并主持社会学研究室工作的费孝通和他的助手张之毅，利用6年时间完成了“云南三村”的调查。以当时的条件来做这样细致的工作，其艰辛可想而知。正如费孝通先生描述：“易村的工作环境，实在比我们所有的工作地方都困苦。不但我们曾好几天除了花生外，没有任何其他可以下饭的东西，而且人地生疏，没有半点借径。一切都得硬硬的打入这个陌生的社区中去。”然而就是在这样的境况下，社会学家们不畏艰难，不辞辛劳，以坚强的意志和严谨的治学做成了不同凡响的事。这是一种何等的求知精神，何等的治学态度！也因了此，《云南三村》才折射出它永恒的价值，闪烁着它不朽的光芒。
而今，时间过去了六七十年，捧读手中的这本《云南三村》，我们为之动容。三个村庄的调查报告，超过30万字，六七十年前的农村社会生活，一目了然地展现在我们面前。农作活动、土地利用、家庭消费、农村金融，甚至成年男子年产人粪、上门姑爷的经济因素等等，农村社会生活的方方面面，社会学家们均以详实的数据，生动的实例，科学的剖析，具体而微地调查出来。其中的细致程度，令人叹为观止。譬如在调查干田冬作物的劳力费用时，社会学家们列表细分，蚕豆种植过程中的拨豆、挑豆、打豆、挖沟、按豆等项工序，每道需要多少男工，多少女工，每天工价多少，工食多少；计算嫁娶费用时，回婚、吃大箩、压定、过大礼、酒席各要多少钱，男方收支多少，女方又是多少；介绍土纸的制造时，社会学家们甚至将舀纸房、炕纸房的全套工具，标明尺寸绘制下来。
态度决定一个人的成就，决定一件事的价值。看了这些，我们也才能明白费孝通和张之毅何以成为享誉中外的知名学者，才能明白《云南三村》何以具有深远持久的社会意义。为避日机轰炸，费孝通和张之毅是在呈贡的一座魁星阁上完成这部著作的。“战时内地知识分子的生活条件是够严酷的了。但是谁也没有叫过苦，叫过穷，总觉得自己在做着有意义的事。吃得了苦，耐得了穷，才值得骄傲和自负。”在这本书里，我们更读懂了传统知识分子的人格魅力和治学精神。从司马迁的发愤著史到明清“小学”学者的考据作风，从闻一多的“三月不下楼”到费孝通的《云南三村》，这种人格魅力和治学精神始终贯穿了传统知识分子的内在世界，成为文明传承和社会进步的不尽源泉。
时下的社会已进入信息时代，文化的多元使我们这个时代更加绚烂多彩。然而不幸的是，即使是在学术界和教育界，浮躁的空气也弥漫了知识的殿堂，不少的学者和更多的学人，追求的往往只是物质的利益和虚假的声名。他们中许多人的智识，仅仅局限于查找他人的成果和网上的资料并组织成篇，这种缺乏创造性的工作，可以肯定对社会是没有多少意义的。面对《云南三村》，我们又该怎样看待这种治学精神的普遍断层呢？
我们需要《云南三村》，我们需要传统的治学精神。
从《江村经济》到《云南三村》，还可以说一直到80年代城乡关系和边区开发的研究，中间贯串着一条理论的线索。《云南三村》是处在这条线索的重要环节上，而且在应用类型比较的方法上也表现得最为清楚。因之，要理解魁阁所进行的这些的社会学研究，最好看一看这本《云南三村》。
《云南三村》是从《江村经济》基础上发展出来的。《江村经济》是对一个农村社区的社会结构和其运作的素描，勾画出一个由各相关要素有系统地配合起来的整体。在解剖这一只“麻雀”的过程中提出了一系列有概括性的理论问题，看到了在当时农村手工业的崩溃、土地权的外流、农民生活的贫困化等等，因而提出了用传统手工业的崩溃和现代工商业势力的侵入来解释以离地地主为主的土地制度的见解。

Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events.

Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years. Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair. This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

This title presents an enthralling account of day-to-day life in a medieval French village. Using records gathered by the Catholic Church in its pursuit of heretics, the book recreates the lives of a rich cast of village characters.

Attempting to provide a sociological explanation of the Holocaust, the main theme of this work is the demonstration that the Holocaust has to be understood as deeply involved with the nature of modernity - neither a single event nor a simple outpouring of barbarism. The author discusses what sociology can teach us about the Holocaust, but more particularly concentrates upon the lesson which the Holocaust has for sociology. There are two ways, he points out, in which the significance of the Holocaust can be side-stepped in our understanding of modernity. One way is to present the Holocaust as something which happened to the Jews, as an event in Jewish history. A second way is to regard the Holocaust as representing loathsome aspects of social life which the progress of modernity will increasingly overcome. Neither of these views stand up to scrutiny, according to the author.

In this incisive book, Michel de Certeau considers the uses to which social representation and modes of social behavior are put by individuals and groups, describing the tactics available to the common man for reclaiming his own autonomy from the all-pervasive forces of commerce, politics, and culture. In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.

In this brilliant work, the most influential philosopher since Sartre suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them.
.
Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent -- and terrifying -- portrait of society that he was patiently compiling.
.
For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives"
.
Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time -- and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.
.
Annotation
Focault interprets his writtings about sexuality, politics and punishment.

For the first time, Guy Debord's pivotal work Society of the Spectacle appears in a definitive and authoritative English translation. Originally published in France in 1967, Society of the Spectacle offered a set of radically new propositions about the nature of contemporary capitalism and modern culture. At the same time it was one of the most influential theoretical works for a wide range of political and revolutionary practice in the 1960s. Today, Debord's work continues to be in the forefront of debates about the fate of consumer society and the operation of modern social power. In a sweeping revision of Marxist categories, the notion of the spectacle takes the problem of the commodity from the sphere of economics to a point at which the commodity as an image dominates not only economic exchange but the primary communicative and symbolic activity of all modern societies.Guy Debord was one of the most important participants in the activities associated with the Situationist International in the 1960s. Also an artist and filmmaker, he is the author of Memoires and Commentaires sur la societe du spectacle. A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books.