Connected Sociologies

Gurminder K. Bhambra is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Social Theory Centre at the University of Warwick, UK. She is Series Editor of the Theory for a Global Age series.

Sociology has a long history of internal reexamination and critique, and some of the works in this genre—such as those of C. Wright Mills and Alvin W. Gouldner—have become classics. Bhambra follows in this tradition; in this instance, she focuses on the ways in which contemporary sociologists to date have, in her opinion, unsuccessfully grappled with the reality of globalization, both its history and its more recent intensification. The shortcomings she finds in such prominent scholars as Ulrich Beck, Michael Mann, and Immanuel Wallerstein are a result of their inability to cast off the imprint of Eurocentrism … The author concludes by proposing the creation of connected sociologies that preserve the pluralism of local experiences. Left unclear is whether the connections can or should yield a unified sociology. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students/faculty.

• Introduction: Connected SociologiesSociological Theory and Historical Sociology 1. Modernisation Theory, Underdevelopment, and Multiple Modernities 2. From Modernisation Theory to World HistorySocial Sciences and Questions of Epistemology3. Opening the Social Sciences to Cosmopolitanism?4. Global Sociology: Indigenous, Subversive, Autonomous? 5. Global Sociology: Multiple, Southern, Provincial? Connected Sociologies6. Postcolonial and Decolonial Reconstructions 7. Sociology for an ‘Always-Already’ Global Age