Restless Ideas: Contemporary Social Theory in an Anxious Age

Tony Simmons illustrates how social theory provides us with the skills for more informed observation, analysis and empathic understanding of social behaviour and social interaction.

How do we make sense of the rise of political strongmen like Trump and Erdoğan, or the increase in hate crimes and terrorism? How can we understand Brexit and xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiments and policies? More importantly, what can we do to make it all stop?

In Restless Ideas, Tony Simmons illustrates how social theory provides us with the skills for more informed observation, analysis and empathic understanding of social behaviour and social interaction. Social theory deepens our understanding of the world around us by empowering us to become practical theorists in our own lives.

Simmons traces the roots of contemporary social theory back to the works of the early structural functionalists, systems theorists, conflict theorists, symbolic interactionists, and ethnomethodologists, and incorporates contemporary social thinkers theorizing from the margins who are redefining the canon. Later chapters focus on the current influence of structuration theory, feminist and queer theory, Indigenous theory, third wave critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism, and liquid and late modernity theories and globalization theories.

About the Author

Tony Simmons teaches sociology at Athabasca University. He is the author of Revitalizing the Classics: What Past Social Theorists Can Teach Us Today and co-author of _Reading Organizational Theory: A Critical Approach to the Study of Organizational Behaviour and Structure.

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