French Social Theory

Mike Gane is Professor of Sociology at University of Loughborough

PART ONE: FIRST CYCLE: 1800-1880 THE BIRTH SOCIAL THEORY: ALTRUISM The Post-revolutionary Void Sacrificial Theory and the Sociology of Modernity Theory in Crisis Religion and the Subjective End of the First Cycle Scholasticism PART TWO: SECOND CYCLE: 1880-1940 THE REBIRTH OF SOCIAL THEORY: ANOMIE Social Theory Reborn French Society Vanguard without a Norm Method in Crisis and the Resort to Theory in Suicide End of the Second Cycle Anthropology and Religion PART THREE: THIRD CYCLE: 1940-2000 THE SECOND BIRTH OF SOCIAL THEORY: HYPERTELIA Existential Theory The Algerian War From Pathology to Normativity Structural Theory Radical Theory and the End of the Social Fin-de-Cycle Time of Counter-Strategies Conclusion Social Theory at the End of the Social

"Gane provides a sweeping summary of some of the central themes in French social theory over the last two centuries as he traces French social theory from the birth of the "social" in Saint-Simonianism to the "social's" supposed demise in the recent writings of Jean Baudrillard. . . . overall he does a masterful job of weaving together social theory with French social and intellectual history." * CHOICE *