Introduction Engaging with the world: critical social science in the wake of the ‘big crisis' of ‘our times'

Is social theory still relevant to social life? Does it still speak to the real problems of real people, in the central or peripheral parts of global society they happen to inhabit? When it does, can it evade the Scylla and Charybdis and navigate between short- range empiricist generalizations and what pass for ‘grand theories’, characterized by catchy phrases and with no pretence to ‘scientifc’ form or content? Such are some of the general questions this book addresses. ¹