This new edition introduces the social science audiences of a new century to one of the classic highlights of the mid-twentieth century. This is the most general statement of the general theory of action as it was developed by its principle exponent, Talcott Parsons, and his close collaborators who formed the core of the fabled department of social relations at Harvard University. Toward a General Theory of Action is an extremely ambitious formulation of the ingredients, dimensions, and ranges that determine human behavior.Parsons and Shils enunciate principles that are at the core of contemporary social science preoccupations -- including the precarious balance between social integration and conflict. The volume is at once universal in intent and highly personal, an expression of Parsons' thought, one of the most notable sociological theorists of the century. Finally, the book symbolizes the interdisciplinary impulse that typified a widespread belief in the unity of the sciences.

Mr. Barnard has made a masterly contribution in his realistic treatment of such topics as informal organization, incentives, and the moral aspects of leadership.
--Harvard Business Review

From the ranks of the country's leading executives comes a major contribution to the understanding of our society... The author presents an analysis of the nature of business organizations and the functions of executives in them. He has been able to stand apart from the minutiae 0f his everyday experiences and to view them as part of the orderly functioning of the organization as a whole ... The work has important implications, for it points the 'way to the development of more effective co-operative systems and at the same time to the developiiient and communication of the executive techniques essential to such systems.
--The American Journal of Sociology

One of the contemporary classics on administration. It has contributed a great deal to organization theory. Often quoted, it is a basic work by a successful executive.
--Business Management

Is justice an ideal, forever beyond our grasp, or something that may actually guide our practical decisions and enhance our lives?In this wide-ranging book, Amartya Sen presents an alternative approach to mainstream theories of justice which, despite their many specific achievements have taken us, he argues, in the wrong direction in general. At the heart of Sen’s argument is his insistence on the role of public reason in establishing what can make societies less unjust. But it is in the nature of reasoning about justice, argues Sen, that it does not allow all questions to be settled even in theory; there are choices to be faced between alternative assessments of what is reasonable; several different and competing positions can each be well-defended.Far from rejecting such pluralities or trying to reduce them beyond the limits of reasoning, we should make use of them to construct a theory of justice that can absorb divergent points of view. Sen also shows how concern about the principles of justice in the modern world must avoid parochialism, and further, address questions of global injustice. The breadth of vision, intellectual acuity and striking humanity of one of the world's leading public intellectuals have never been more clearly shown than in this remarkable book.

"Crowds and Power" is a revolutionary work in which Elias Canetti finds a new way of looking at human history and psychology. Breathtaking in its range and erudition, it explores Shiite festivals and the English Civil war, the finger exercises of monkeys and the effects of inflation in Weimar Germany. In this study of the interplay of crowds, Canetti offers one of the most profound and startling portraits of the human condition.

《这个时代的无知与傲慢:索罗斯给开放社会的建言》内容简介：索罗斯是当代西方著名的哲学家卡尔波普的学生，他的思想和世界观深受其哲学思想影响。他在《这个时代的无知与傲慢:索罗斯给开放社会的建言》一书中谈到了其对人类行为的易错性，思维与真相等问题的理解，认为“我们身处一个不完美的社会，人类行为具有彻底的易错性”，试图从认识论层面重新激发人们对当今世界的看法。
索罗斯还在书中谈到了自己对911事件、反恐战争、以及美国民主自由世界观的看法，针砭时弊地指出这个时代缺陷———暴政、暴戾、无知以及傲慢；同时，也提出了他对开放世界的谏言。

Blinded by a concept
11:06 AM PDT, August 31, 2006
The failure of Israel to subdue Hezbollah demonstrates the many weaknesses of the war-on-terror concept. One of those weaknesses is that even if the targets are terrorists, the victims are often innocent civilians, and their suffering reinforces the terrorist cause.
In response to Hezbollah's attacks, Israel was justified in attacking Hezbollah to protect itself against the threat of missiles on its border. However, Israel should have taken greater care to minimize collateral damage. The civilian casualties and material damage inflicted on Lebanon inflamed Muslims and world opinion against Israel and converted Hezbollah from aggressors to heroes of resistance for many. Weakening Lebanon has also made it more difficult to rein in Hezbollah.
Another weakness of the war-on-terror concept is that it relies on military action and rules out political approaches. Israel previously withdrew from Lebanon and then from Gaza unilaterally, rather than negotiating political settlements with the Lebanese government and the Palestinian authority. The strengthening of Hezbollah and Hamas was a direct consequence of that approach. The war-on-terror concept stands in the way of recognizing this fact because it separates "us" from "them" and denies that our actions help shape their behavior.
?
A third weakness is that the war-on-terror concept lumps together different political movements that use terrorist tactics. It fails to distinguish between Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda or the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi militia in Iraq. Yet all these terrorist manifestations, being different, require different responses. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah can be treated merely as targets in the war on terror because they have deep roots in their societies; yet there are profound differences between them.
Looking back, it is easy to see where Israeli policy went wrong. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen him and his reformist team. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, negotiated a six-point plan on behalf of the Quartet for the Middle East (Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations). It included opening crossings between Gaza and the West Bank, an airport and seaport in Gaza, opening the border with Egypt, and transferring the greenhouses abandoned by Israeli settlers into Arab hands.
None of the six points was implemented. This contributed to Hamas?s electoral victory. The Bush administration, having pushed Israel to allow the Palestinians to hold elections, then backed Israel?s refusal to deal with a Hamas government. The effect was to impose further hardship on the Palestinians.
Nevertheless, Abbas was able to forge an agreement with the political arm of Hamas for the formation of a unity government. It was to foil this agreement that the military branch of Hamas, run from Damascus, engaged in the provocation that brought a heavy-handed response from Israel - which in turn incited Hezbollah to further provocation, opening a second front. That is how extremists play off against each other to destroy any chance of political progress.
Israel has been a participant in this game, and President Bush bought into this flawed policy, uncritically supporting Israel. Events have shown that this policy leads to the escalation of violence. The process has advanced to the point where Israel's unquestioned military superiority is no longer sufficient to overcome the negative consequences of its policy.
Israel is now more endangered in it existence that it was at the time of the Oslo Agreement on peace. Similarly, The United States has become less safe since President Bush declared war on terror.
The time has come to realize that the present policies are counterproductive. There will be no end to the vicious circle of escalating violence without a political settlement of the Palestine question. In fact, the prospects for engaging in negotiations are better now than they were a few months ago. The Israelis must realize that a military deterrent is not sufficient on its own. And Arabs, having redeemed themselves on the battlefield, may be more willing to entertain a compromise.
There are strong voices arguing that Israel must never negotiate from a position of weakness. They are wrong. Israel?s position is liable to become weaker the longer it persists on its present course. Similarly Hezbollah, having tasted the sense but not the reality of victory (and egged on by Syria and Iran) may prove recalcitrant. But that is where the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas comes into play. The Palestinian people yearn for peace and relief from suffering. The political - as distinct from the military - wing of Hamas must be responsive to their desires. It is not too late for Israel to encourage and deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government as the first step toward a better-balanced approach. Given how strong the U.S.-Israeli relationship is, it would help Israel achieve its own legitimate aims if the U.S. government were not blinded by the war-on-terror concept.

本书的主旨在于讨论作为现代生活中一个经济因素的有闲阶级的地位和价值，但是要把讨论严格地限制在这样标明的范围以内是办不到的。因此关于制度的起源和演进以及一般不列入经济学范围以内的一些社会生活特征，这里也不得不给以相当的注意。

《炫耀性消费(英汉双语)》的作者通过研究制度的起源，观察社会上的经济现象，尤其是上层阶层的有闲特权与消费特征，来探讨制度与经济现象之间的奥妙关系。书中对社会现象、消费行为、人类心理的剖析入木三分，阐明了习惯、文化和制度如何塑造人类行为，以及人类行为的变化怎样影响经济。同时又从有闲阶级的角度出发，阐明了这样一个主旨：什么是经济人的本质？社会为什么会产生有闲阶级？“有闲”本身的经济意义是什么？100多年过去了，相似的经济现象在世界各地，包括经济迅速发展的中国上演不衰，诸如人们对金融投资的热衷，对教育文化的重视，对时尚品牌的追逐，对享乐主义的崇尚……这本百年经典同样可以解释今天你我身边的经济现象。

《时尚的哲学》是西美尔的文集，他的一贯主题、断片风格、暧昧行话、理论气质和哲学性情，在书中都展露无遗。

《夏村社会》一书，沿着费孝通“差序格局”的理论脉络，通过对江南“夏村”精致的民族志描写，提出了“差序场”的分析框架，为我们深刻认识当代中国东部沿海地区村庄社会的特质提供了不可多得的案例。
作者认为，当下的中国东部沿海村庄已经由横向的社会整合，转变为横向整合和纵向整合相结合的格局，由此，作者发展出“差序场”的概念和分析框架，并以此为核心，在村庄人格系统、文化系统和社会系统三位一体的层面，以行动和结构互动为特征，以村庄日常生活的意义构建为内容，形成了与汉学人类学传统经典理论的对话，将前人的研究向前推进了一步。
作者学理的积淀比较深厚，语言细腻，哲理性较强，故虽是“故事”，读来也十分耐人寻味，并富于理论启发，是目前国内村庄民族志研究中出现的比较优秀的田野实验民族志文本。文本理论性强，与相关理论进行了有深度的对话，达到一定的高度，又较具可读性，而且，作者在故事的铺陈中融叙事与理论分析为一体，将社会学分析融入到人类学的田野经验呈现之中，也具有一定的创新性。

Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Why did Facebook succeed when other social networking sites failed? Did the surge in Iraq really lead to less violence? How much can CEO’s impact the performance of their companies? And does higher pay incentivize people to work hard?
If you think the answers to these questions are a matter of common sense, think again. As sociologist and network science pioneer Duncan Watts explains in this provocative book, the explanations that we give for the outcomes that we observe in life—explanation that seem obvious once we know the answer—are less useful than they seem.
Drawing on the latest scientific research, along with a wealth of historical and contemporary examples, Watts shows how common sense reasoning and history conspire to mislead us into believing that we understand more about the world of human behavior than we do; and in turn, why attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and economic systems so often go awry.
It seems obvious, for example, that people respond to incentives; yet policy makers and managers alike frequently fail to anticipate how people will respond to the incentives they create. Social trends often seem to have been driven by certain influential people; yet marketers have been unable to identify these “influencers” in advance. And although successful products or companies always seem in retrospect to have succeeded because of their unique qualities, predicting the qualities of the next hit product or hot company is notoriously difficult even for experienced professionals.
Only by understanding how and when common sense fails, Watts argues, can we improve how we plan for the future, as well as understand the present—an argument that has important implications in politics, business, and marketing, as well as in science and everyday life.