ABSTRACT
Pareto’s (1935) The Mind and Society (originally published as the [1916] Trattato di Sociologica Generale) will be re-read here as a sociology of risk and uncertainty. To be clear, the terms ‘risk’ and ‘uncertainty’ held no sociological significance whatsoever for Pareto. Nonetheless, we suggest his sociological thought can usefully be recast in a risk and uncertainty discourse. This concern will lead us to clarify Pareto’s sociological purpose by situating the Treatise in the long tradition of Machiavellian realism. Our re-reading will also deliver up a unique way of thinking about what it means to be exposed to risk, and to be uncertain, in our individualised, complex, fast-paced world.
