Raymond Boudon is the author of many other works including The Analysis of Ideology, (Polity Press, 1989).

'Ought to do almost all its readers a lot of good. And Boudon and his translator both deserve the reader's gratitude for the clarity and consecutiveness of it all.' New Society 'A critical reading of a wide range of texts concerning social change in various historical and cultural settings ...' Contemporary Sociology'This is a brave attempt at a new kind of textbook on the sociology of development.' Political Studies Association'Boudon's arguments deserve the attention, if not always the assent, of scholars from a wide range of fields.' Stephen Crook, University of Tasmania

• Foreword. 1. Theories of Social Change.2. Individual Action, Aggregation Effects and Social Change.3. The Laws Governing Change: the Nomological Bias.4. Structures and Change: the Structuralist Bias.5. The Search for the Prime Mover: the Ontological Bias.6. A Well-Tempered Determinism.7. Giving Disorder its Due.Epilogue.Notes.General Index.