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Built upon a series of critical encounters with major figures in classical and present-day social and political thought, this volume offers not only a critique of major traditions of social and political analysis, but insights into the ideas which the author has developed over the past two decades. It therefore serves as a comprehensive introduction to some of the main debates preoccupying the social sciences and politics. The book includes discussions of politics and sociology in the thought of Max Weber, and an analysis of Durkheim's political sociology and his interpretation of individualism and solidarity in modern societies. Various more contemporary figures are also subjected to critical dissection and appraisal, most notably Habermas, Foucault, Marcuse, Garfinkel and Popper. A number of unifying themes associated with Gidden's standpoint run through each of the chapters: the methodological reconstruction of social investigation; the re-interpretation of modernity; and the reformulation of a critical theory of politics. The work should be of interest to anyone concerned with the major dilemmas faced by social and political theory today, as well as those seeking to follow the overall trajectory of Gidden's early thinking. Anthony Gidden is the author of "Sociology", "The Transformation of Intimacy" and "Modernity and Self-Identity".