The Shape of Sociology for the 21st Century

Sociology, itself a moment of the self-reflexive nature of modernity, periodically makes itself an object of reflection. This collection of papers, artfully brought together by Devorah Kalekin and Anne Dennis, by many of the leading sociologists of the ISA, covers a wide range of topics and perspectives that are crucial for understanding our time and how sociology shows both greater specialization of interests and at the same time, more interdisciplinary approaches - all of which are contextualized by the ever growing globality of our age - which includes the growing interests in sociology. It is mandatory reading for those concerned with where international sociology is and where it its going. And given the range of topics - it is a very enjoyable read.

-- Professor Lauren Langman
All sociologists (and would-be sociologists) are interested in where their discipline is going and it is the backdrop to many conversations amongst those involved with the discipline, but serious discussion about the future is seldom broached. These essays from a workshop of luminaries associated with ISA build on a slim thread of earlier work by carefully updating and extending assessments of the discipline′s past and by assaying its potentials. Their empirically-grounded examinations of the relationships between changing social realities (including a widening focus on the Global South) and the cognitive and social organisation of the discipline make the contributions particularly valuable. -- Professor Charles Crothers
This is an important and thought-provoking collection of contemporary articles on the current crisis in social theory.

-- Professor Roger Penn
With a comprehensive vision, great sociologists from around the world address the challenges of the new century. -- Professor Michael Burawoy

The book itself is the product of a genuinely international effort and it would be wrong not to recognize this dimension. It arose from an initiative in 2008 in the International Sociological Association and contains nineteen chapters – there is some disproportion (over half) of authors from English-speaking countries of majority-European extraction (Australia, Canada, UK, USA), with a smattering of other individual authors from Continental Europe, leaving sole representatives from Belarus, Brazil, Israel and The Philippines.

-- Chris Husbands