Anthony Giddens and Modern Social Theory

Anthony Giddens is widely recognized as one of the most important sociologists of the post-war period, but few works have placed his theory in the context of other theoretical positions and research traditions. Consequently, there is a vagueness about what is unique or different about Giddens’ social theory. This volume guides the reader through Giddens’ early attempts to overcome the duality of structure and agency. Giddens himself saw this duality as a major failing of social theories of modernity and his bid to solve the problem can be regarded as the key to the development of his trademark structuration theory . The book investigates the ways in which Giddens’ approach to agency and institutions draws on theorists such as Wittgenstein and Goffman, who failed to develop a macro approach to sociology. It then turns to his theory of modernity. Here the book examines themes which have become cornerstones of Giddens’ later work: the transformation of modern intimacy and sexuality, and the fate of politics in late modern society. The text systematically relates Giddens’ theoretical concepts to modern social theory, comparing and contrasting his work with major currents in this area, inclding the work of Habermas, Foucault, Bourdieu, Elias and Parsons, and with schools of thought such as feminism, ethnomethodology, Marxism, symbolic interactionism and postmodernism. The text incorporates insights from many different perspectives into Giddens’ theory of structuration, his work on the formation of cultural identities, the dynamics of modernity and the fate of the nation-state.