‘An important and timely contribution, Society and Culture engages crucial debates that are reshaping the core identity and future agenda of sociology. Turner and Rojek start with an insightful reconsideration of Parsons' theory of action, identify the strengths and limits of contemporary projects like those of Giddens and Beck, and offer a valuable new direction for future development.' Craig Calhoun, Professor of Sociology and History, New York University

‘Focusing on the ineradicable vulnerability of embodied and mortal human beings as the mainspring of institution-building, and on the condition of scarcity as the postulate of solidarity and the main parameters of human responses to that condition, Turner and Rojek draw a new horizon for sociological inquiry, calling for a radical reorientation of sociological strategy; by the same token they posit a challenge which no member of the sociological profession may leave unattended.’ Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and the University of Warsaw

-Why bother with modern sociology? -Has 'the cultural turn' made the study of society redundant?

Society & Culture is a commanding assessment of the promise of twenty-first century sociology. This tour de force provides the most complete advocacy of sociology after the cultural turn.

This book presents sociology analytically as the study of solidarity, distinct from economics (the study of scarcity), politics (the study of violence), and from cultural studies. The authors contend that the correct materialist base for sociological study is the body, and from this a number of issues, such as the vulnerability of the body, the frailty of the natural environment, and belonging and conflict in Society, are articulated which raise a set of universal questions that can revitalize sociology.