Time and Social Theory

ISBN-13: 9780745614076 / Angielski / Miękka / 1994 / 200 str.

Barbara Adam

Opis

Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world. Through her analysis of time, Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications.

Recenzje

WINNER OF THE 1991 PHILIP ABRAMS MEMORIAL PRIZE.

′Barbara Adam will be read well into the next century not only for her remarkable understanding of human time but for the link she makes with the conception of time held by physicists and biologists.′ Michael Young, Director, Institute of Community Studies

′Very important ... an exceptionally clearly expressed account of issues usually dealt with in the most clotted writing. It is a genuine expression of sociological thought using the insights of other disciplines not as ′borrowing′ but as illustrations of a direction to be followed.′ Sociology

′Barbara Adam has written a superb book.′ Time and Society

Spis treści

Introduction: Time is a Fact of Life.

1. Time in Social Theory: Destiny, Necessity, Enigma.

2. From the Measure of Motion of Entropy.

3. Rhythmicity: Source of Life and Form.

4. Human Time Studied.

5. Industrial Time and Power.

6. Time Transcended.

7. Time for Social Theory: Points of Departure.

References.

O autorze

Barbara Adam is editor of Time and Society.