Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society Series

Book 46

Originally published in 1984, "The Body and Society" flew against prevailing trends which asked sociologists to understand society in terms of abstractions such as structure, class and function. Instead, in a series of dazzling chapters, Bryan S Turner argued that the body should be the axis of sociological analysis. The Second Edition of this ground-breaking book includes a new introduction which analyzes the social changes which have given a special prominence to the body in contemporary social theory, and develops Turner's own notion of a 'somatic society', a society within which major political and personal problems are both problematized in the body and expressed through it. Complementing the introduction is a preface whose stress is lyrical and pictorial. Turner reflects on the cover images used in recent work on the body, recognizing that it is often through the history of art that we can dimly grasp the body metaphors which lie, no longer to hand, but at the foundation of thinking and feeling.

For Weber

by Bryan S Turner

Published 18 December 1995

For Weber is recognized widely as one of the most incisive and stimulating books on Weber in the post-war period. Writing in defence of Weber's sociology against the criticism of academic sociology by Marxists such as Louis Althusser, Bryan Turner, a leading Weberian scholar, rejects the view that Weber's sociology is bourgeois, subjectivist and individualistic.

This Second Edition, now available in paperback, includes a new Preface which reviews the scholarship on Weber since 1981. The book also provides a survey of the strengths and weaknesses of the major sociological approaches in the post-war period.

Religion and Social Theory

by Bryan S Turner

Published 19 July 1991

The second edition of this major book on the social analysis of religion incorporates a substantial new introduction by Bryan S Turner. Religion and Social Theory assesses the different theoretical approaches to the social function of religion. Turner discusses at length the ideas of key contributors to these approaches (including Engels, Durkheim, Weber, Nietzsche, Freud, Parsons, Marcuse, Habermas and Foucault). In so doing, he develops a distinctive perspective on the role of religion as an institutional link between economic and human reproduction.

Social theories of religion are explored through a resolutely comparative and historical analysis of the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Relating comparative religion to the social context of individualism, civil religions and political legitimacy, the book makes a major contribution to the analysis of conflict and consensus in social systems.

Scarcity, Love and Solidarity

by Bryan S Turner

Published 31 January 2000