Galbraith's classic on the "economics of abundance" is, in the words of the New York Times, "a compelling challenge to conventional thought." With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Galbraith cuts to the heart of what economic security means (and doesn't mean) in today's world and lays bare the hazards of individual and societal complacence about economic inequity. While "affluent society" and "conventional wisdom" (first used in this book) have entered the vernacular, the message of the book has not been so widely embraced--reason enough to rediscover The Affluent Society.

In this riveting portrait of authoritarianism in peril, acclaimed journalist William Dobson takes us inside the relentless battle between dictators and the people challenging their rule.
We are witnessing an incredible moment in the war between dictators and democracy—waves of protests are sweeping Syria and Yemen, and despots have fallen in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. But the Arab Spring is only the latest front in a worldwide battle between freedom and repression, a battle that also rages in a dozen other countries from Venezuela to China, Russia to Malaysia. It is a struggle that, until recently, dictators have been winning hands-down. The reason is that today’s authoritarian regimes are nothing like the frozen-in-time government of North Korea. They are ever-morphing, technologically savvy, and internationally connected, and they have replaced more brutal forms of intimidation with seemingly “free” elections and talk of human rights. Facing off against modern dictators is an unlikely army of democracy advocates—students, bloggers, environmentalists, lawyers, activists, and millionaires—who are growing increasingly savvy themselves. The result is a global game of cat-and-mouse, where the future of freedom hangs in the balance. Dobson takes us behind the scenes in both camps, and reveals how each side is honing its strategies for the war that will define our age.

英国是世界上最早的I业国家，但是英国中上阶层人士从未对工业主义有过好感。本书引用小说、艺术、诗歌、政论、哲学、社会惯习等诸多方面的文献，生动地探讨7英国文化对只注重经济增长的现代工业社会的抵触和批判。从19世纪中叶一直到20世纪80年代，这一思潮深刻地影响了英国文化：包括文学、报纸、建筑，以及社会、历史、经济思想。学术界过去一直将英国这种注重享乐不思进取（即重生活质量不重GDP）状况称为“英国病”，但是回望过去，也许我们应该换种眼光来看。

「文革」是一個事實和情緒的巨大總量，交織了數億人太多的紛爭和尷尬，沉浮和恩怨，遺忘和誇張，以至任何判斷都可能掛一漏萬。事情已過去三十多年，但三十多年後的有關爭議不是更少，而是更多；不是更緩，而是更烈……。」
本書作者韓少功，作為在場者之一，他說：我不可能接受一些嘻哈族的「文革」，比如他們覺得紅衛兵步行串聯特有趣，那不就是「驢友」探險嗎？他們覺得知青下鄉也特來勁兒，那不就是真人秀的「魔鬼訓練」嗎？他們甚至覺得子彈橫飛的武鬥夠爽，夠刺激，嘿，那時候「軍迷」玩一把真的耶。我也不可能接受一些洋左派的「文革」，他們曾認定革命樣板戲就是文化領域人民主權的神聖標誌，紅衛兵挎上駁殼槍就是最徹底的解放，工人趕走廠長就是共產主義的夢想成真。當然，我也完全不可接受某些中國官員的振振有詞：「你以為現在還是文革？你們還想踢開黨委鬧革命？」
問題是，這些人的「文革」印象錯在哪裏？憑什麼本書作者就認為自己的「文革」記憶比他們的更可靠？憑什麼他能相信自己的記憶不是另一種瞎子摸象，在這裏的饒舌不是以白詆青、以宮笑角，五十步看百步？

在本书中，作者对中国互联网的历史做了一次突破性的研究，细致又全面地观察了中国互联网对于国家和社会的影响，发现互联网给中国的社会—政治变革带来了新的动力。政府权力和社会力量在以互联网为媒介的公共领域中转换。
从大量的数据梳理和事实分析中，作者得出了四重的研究结论。首先，互联网给政府和社会都增加了权力。互联网在促进政治自由化中扮演了重要的角色，使政府更加开放、透明和负责任。第二，互联网产生了大量的影响，高度分散和超越了政府权力的限度。第三，互联网为政府和社会彼此间的契约和分离创造了一个新的基础结构。第四，互联网创造了一种政府和社会的回归关系。政府和社会之间在互联网上相互作用，最终重塑了政府和社会。

Europe's imperial projects were often predicated on a series of legal and scientific distinctions that were frequently challenged by the reality of social and sexual interactions between the colonized and the colonizers. When Emmanuelle Saada discovered a 1928 decree defining the status of persons of mixed parentage born in French Indochina - the metis - she found not only a remarkable artifact of colonial rule, but a legal bombshell that introduced race into French law for the first time. The decree was the culmination of a decades-long effort to resolve the "metis question": the educational, social, and civil issues surrounding the mixed population. Operating at the intersection of history, anthropology, and law, "Empire's Children" reveals the unacknowledged but central role of race in the definition of French nationality. Through extensive archival work in both France and Vietnam, and a close reading of primary and secondary material from the Pacific islands and sub-Saharan and North Africa, Saada has created in "Empire's Children" an original and compelling perspective on colonialism, law, race, and culture from the end of the nineteenth century until decolonization.

研究政治发展的重要著作，特别是提出“政治稳定=政治制度/政治参与”的著名公式。研究Huntington，此书必读，断不可只跟潮流去看《文明冲突论》而不看此书。

◆《游戏改变世界》是著名未来学家、TED大会新锐演讲者简•麦戈尼格尔探索互联时代重要趋势的最新力作。在书中，作者指出：游戏可以弥补现实世界的不足和缺陷，游戏化可以让现实变得更美好。
◆作者在书中用大量事例告诉我们，游戏击中了人类幸福的核心，提供了令人愉悦的奖励、刺激性的挑战和宏大的胜利，而这些都是现实世界十分匮乏的。她的研究表明，我们可以借助游戏的力量，让生活变得像游戏一样精彩。
◆作者指出了游戏化将要实现的四大目标：更满意的工作、更有把握的成功、更强的社会联系及更宏大的意义，并用大量实践告诉我们该如何驾驭游戏的力量，解决现实问题，并提升幸福感。她告诫我们：如果人们继续忽视游戏，在不远的未来，就会处在极端不利的地位。

The Great Recession has prompted a reassessment of the specific mode of capitalist accumulation that achieved dominance in the era of globalization. Yet just about all of this literature has focused on one of two issues: why things went wrong, and what we need to do in order to return the system to stability. Outside of a contingent of radical socialists on the fringes of the debate, virtually no one questioned whether capitalism could continue. In Does Capitalism Have a Future?, the prominent theorist Georgi Derleugian has gathered together a quintet of eminent macrosociologists to assess whether the capitalist system can survive.
The prevalent common wisdom, for all its current gloom, nevertheless safely assumes that capitalism cannot break down permanently because there is no alternative. The authors shatter this assumption, arguing that this generalization is not supported by theory but is rather an outgrowth of the optimistic nineteenth-century claim that human history ascends through stages to an enlightened equilibrium of liberal capitalism. Yet as they point out, just about all major historical systems have broken down in the end (e.g., the Roman empire). In the modern epoch there have been several cataclysmic events-notably the French revolution, World War I, and the collapse of the Soviet bloc-that came to pass mainly because contemporary political elites had spectacularly failed to calculate the consequences of the processes they presumed to govern. At present, none of our governing elites and very few of our intellectuals can fathom an ending to our current reigning system. Considering whether a collapse is possible is the task that the quintet-Derleugian, Michael Mann, Randall Collins, Craig Calhoun, and Immanuel Wallerstein-sets out to explore. While all of the contributors arrive at different conclusions, they are in constant dialogue with each other and therefore able to construct relatively seamless-if open-ended-whole. For instance, Wallerstein (who accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet system in 1979) and Collins, identify fatal structural faults in twenty-first century capitalism. Mann, on the other hand, does not think that there is any serious alternative to the market dynamic, but he does identify other serious threats to the system, including environmental degradation. Calhoun and Derluguian are more circumspect and focus on the role of politics in steering the system toward either revival or collapse.
This most ambitious of books, written by the highest caliber of sociologists, asks the biggest of questions: are we on the cusp of a radical world historical shift or not?

"The Uncertainties of Knowledge" extends Immanuel Wallerstein's decade-long work of elucidating the crisis of knowledge in current intellectual thought. He argues that the disciplinary divisions of academia have trapped us in a paradigm that assumes knowledge is a certainty and that it can help us explain the social world. This is wrong, he suggests. Instead, Wallerstein offers a new conception of the social sciences, one whose methodology allows for uncertainties. Author note: Immanuel Wallerstein is Director of the Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University, and Senior Research Scholar at Yale University.

Third wave keeps multidimensional perspectives Its for every human being, to read: students, teachers, Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers,sociologist, Economist,IT managers, sales personnels, and whosever can read and understand this Bible.

Digital Labor calls on the reader to examine the shifting sites of labor markets to the Internet through the lens of their political, technological, and historical making. Internet users currently create most of the content that makes up the web: they search, link, tweet, and post updates-leaving their "deep" data exposed. Meanwhile, governments listen in, and big corporations track, analyze, and predict users' interests and habits. This unique collection of essays provides a wide-ranging account of the dark side of the Internet. It claims that the divide between leisure time and work has vanished so that every aspect of life drives the digital economy. The book reveals the anatomy of playbor (play/labor), the lure of exploitation and the potential for empowerment. Ultimately, the 14 thought-provoking chapters in this volume ask how users can politicize their troubled complicity, create public alternatives to the centralized social web, and thrive online. Contributors: Mark Andrejevic, Ayhan Aytes, Michel Bauwens, Jonathan Beller, Patricia Ticineto Clough, Sean Cubitt, Jodi Dean, Abigail De Kosnik, Julian Dibbell, Christian Fuchs, Lisa Nakamura, Andrew Ross, Ned Rossiter, Trebor Scholz, Tizania Terranova, McKenzie Wark, and Soenke Zehle

In this major theoretical statement, the author offers a new and provoctive interpretation of institutional transformations associated with modernity. What is modernity? The author suggests, "As a first approximation, let us simply say the following: 'modernity' refers to modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence." We do not as yet, the author argues, live in a post-modern world. The distinctive characteristics of our major social institutions in the closing years of the twentieth century suggest that, rather than entering into a period of post-modernity, we are moving into a period of "high modernity" in which the consequences of modernity are becoming more radicalized and universalized than before. A post-modern social universe may eventualy come into being, but this as yet lies on the other side of the forms of social and cultural organization that currently dominate world history. In developing a fresh characterization of the nature of modernity, the author concentrates on the themes of "security versus danger and o "trust versus risk. Modernity is a double-edged phenomenon. The development of modern social institutions has created vastly greater opportunities for human beings to enjoy a secure and rewarding existencethan in any type of pre-modern system. But modernity also has a somber side that has become very important in the present century, such as the frequently degrading nature of modern industrial work, the growth of totalitarianism, the threat of environmentsal destruction, and the alrming development of military power and weaponry. The book builds upon the author's pevious theoretical writings and will be of great interest to those who have followed his work through the years. However, this book covers issues the author has not previously analyzed and extends the scope of his work into areas of pressing practical concern.

Max Weber was one of the most influential and creative intellectual forces of the twentieth century. In his methodology of the social sciences, he both exposed the flaws and solidified the foundations of the German historical tradition. Throughout his life, he saw bureaucracy as a serious obstacle to cultural vitality but as an inescapable part of organizational rationality. And in his most famous essay, on the Protestant ethic, he uncovered the psychological underpinnings of capitalism and modern occupational life.
This searching work offers the first comprehensive introduction to Weber's thought for students and newcomers. Fritz Ringer locates Weber in his historical context, relating his ideas to the controversies and politics of his day. Ringer also considers the importance of Weber to contemporary life, discussing his insights into the limits of scholarly research and the future of Western capitalist societies. Weber, Ringer reminds us, believed in democracy, liberalism, and fundamental human rights; his ethic of responsibility remains as vital to our historical moment as it was to his own.
A concise and incisive look at the man and personality behind the thought, "Max Weber" is a masterful outing in intellectual biography and social theory.

德国最后的文化贵族已经在二战前被终结了。关于这一代欧洲文人，韦伯做过类比，说他们近似中国儒家学者(Mandarins)，其“地位来自教育与学识，而非世袭权力或财富”。关键是：中国学人饱读诗书、珍爱文化，同时具备政治抱负、治国才干。如此进退自如，可谓知识分子理想型。这一代文人都很讲文化民族主义，到了现在，被布尔迪厄通通批为“文化保守主义”一代，并认为他们要对纳粹兴起负主要责任。真是驴唇不对马嘴啊。