Contemporary sociological theory

Although sociological theory is now an established subfield of sociology, which has a founding father, canonical books, heroic periods of rapid development, its own stock of key terms and world-renowned journals, is not entirely easy to interpret, what its true content actually is. The authors attempt to answer this question in the opening section of the book; followed by twenty-three portraits of the most important figures of contemporary theoretical sociology (Lévi-Strauss, Parsons, Merton, Habermas, Foucault, Dahrendorf and many others) in order to present their main ideas and to show, which most enriched the space of systematic thinking about society. The book does not theorise about society as such, but presents a discussion of selected theories and theorists who have made a major contribution to the development of sociological thought. The aim is to give the reader an initial insight into the production of contemporary sociological theory and to provide a basic orientation for future readings of primary sociological texts.