ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of European Sociology explores the main aspects of the work and scholarship of European sociologists during the last sixty years (1950-2010), a period that has shaped the methods and identity of the sociological craft. European social theory has produced a vast constellation of theoretical landscapes with a far reaching impact. At the same time there has been diversity and fragmentation, the influence of American sociology, and the effect of social practice and transformations. The guiding question is: does European Sociology really exist today, and if the answer is positive, what does this really mean? Divided into four parts, the Handbook investigates:

  • intellectual and institutional settings
  • regional variations
  • thematic variations
  • European concerns.

The Handbook will provides a set of state-of-the-art accounts that break new ground, each contribution teasing out the distinctively European features of the sociological theme it explores. It will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences and humanities.

part |128 pages

Intellectual and institutional settings

chapter |27 pages

European sociology

Its size, shape, and “excellence”

chapter |18 pages

Towards a European society

What can European sociology tell us?

chapter |18 pages

The ‘linguistic turn’ and continental sociology

The question of agency and structure

chapter |11 pages

European construction and sociology

part |141 pages

Thematic variations

chapter |15 pages

A European sociology of migration?

Not yet, not quite

part |158 pages

Regional variations

chapter |12 pages

Sociology in the Netherlands

chapter |19 pages

Portuguese sociology

A non-cesurial perspective

chapter |16 pages

The late ascent of the UK to a sociological great power

A comment from the margins

chapter |19 pages

No longer between East and West

Dialectics and paradoxes in Polish sociology1