I have just finished what I regard as an excellent volume of analyses and reflections on capitalism and its future by a group of sociology’s big hitters, namely, Immanual Wallerstein, Rndall Collins, Michael Mann, Georgi Derluguian and Craig Calhoun. It’s called Does Capitalism Have a Future? Ok, so theyre all ageing white males, but as… Read More »
Surprisingly often ideas advance, theses refined, by serendipitous means. So it is in this case. I have just finished Michiko Kakutani’s excellent The Death of Truth, a discourse on our present era, one which has been understandably characterized as ‘post-truth’. In most of my publications, and blogs too, I have short-changed culture, so keen have… Read More »
I have to date blogged some 70+ fragments of ‘sociological autobiography’. They are, as my father would have said, ‘mixed pickles’. The rationale for the rubric was that I intended from the outset to temper chronology and events with bouts of introspection and reflection, and given that I have long been a sociologist, these would… Read More »
Every now and again – most recently in the excellent Does Capitalism Have a Future?, featuring a star casting of Wallerstein, Collins, Mann, Derluguian and Calhoun – I come across references to Kondratiev waves. Maybe it’s age but I often forget its detail. So I thought a blog to remind myself, and possibly others, might… Read More »
Stuff often happens more or less by chance. I haven’t thought seriously about Poulantzas since my undergraduate days in the late 1960s (when he was on a few reading lists). At the back of my mind, however, has been Bob Jessop’s admiration for Poulantzas’ analyses of the state. Then the other day, serendipitously, I came… Read More »
One of my hopefully sparse mantras is: ‘methodology is very important, but nothing like as important as we think it is.’ What do I mean by this? Well, here are a few common fallacies to kick off with: There is one right way: ok, few would sign up to the idea that there is a… Read More »
One needs to be wary of ‘Rich Lists’, whether from the Sunday Times or from Forbes. The reason? As Piketty has shown, they seriously under-estimate the possession of wealth by individuals. It is not for nothing that greed is so well hidden. But this is not to say that the Sunday Times Rich List is… Read More »
It is too easy for those of us babyboomers inclined to toil away in isolation – like me, I confess – to miss out on: (a) the full talent and contributions of our peers, and (b) the emerging input of the next generation of sociologists. Well, occasionally, serendipitously, I hit on stuff that impressively feeds… Read More »
DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY? Graham Scambler Introducing: Behind the Scenes This is a book of sociology that differs from many another. Most obviously it is not written with students of the discipline in mind. There already exists a plethora of textbooks within students’ reach and compass, many of which are excellent guides… Read More »
I recently read Camus’ The Fastidious Assassins, and I found myself reacting with the usual uneasy admix of judgement and feeling. Camus writes wonderfully well and with considerable subtlety and depth. Yet he refuses to ‘spells things out’. This is of course a strength as well as a weakness. Its strength is the avoidance of… Read More »