coming Summer 2027
advance praise for Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings 8th Edition:
“It is not often that a comprehensive volume on social theory can be so provocative or its editors so forthright. Bringing together theorists from the classical western tradition with those from the global east and south, the volume invites us to rethink how our past shapes our future, what can be repaired and what can only be remedied by starting from scratch. It leaves no questions about whose side it's on, no middle ground for confusion.”
Frederick F. Wherry, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917 Professor of Sociology, Princeton University
“This formidable collection of writings on social theory has long been, and is surely destined to remain, a classic. It represents a superb and extraordinary accomplishment. In this new edition, Lemert and Plys break new ground with work that is both a succinct summary of a vast field and a creative synthesis.”
Anthony Elliott, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Adelaide University and Super-Global Visiting Professor, Keio University
"Social Theory has always understood that the most important work of sociological theorizing is not to furnish answers but to keep asking better questions, difficult questions. This eighth edition of Social Theory — broader, more global, and more diverse than ever — arrives at exactly the moment when that disposition is hardest to maintain and most urgently needed."
Josée Johnston, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
“After witnessing a lynching in the early 1900s, the famous sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois remarked that he ‘could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered and starved.’ The 2026 edition of Social Theory by Charles Lemert descends from such Du Boisian radicalism, passion, and of making critical sociology in the interests of human rights. Lemert breathes fire as he speaks truth to power. He empirically illuminates the social causes and consequences of the joys and pain of the human experience, and in so doing, demonstrates how forging a better world depends on our relationships to the people, ideologies, and institutions around us. Read Social Theory not only to better comprehend the social sciences, but to become a more ethical and critical transformer of a deeply unequal world.”
Matthew W. Hughey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and author of White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race
More than a reader, Social Theory brings together the work of classic and contemporary social theorists whose thought on democracy, class, gender, race and decolonization is thoughtfully introduced by Charles Lemert and Kristin Plys. Comprised of a vast selection of texts that have changed how we think about the social, this book includes the foundational texts of social theory while looking at writing that addresses the problems of contemporary society with selections from Émile Durkheim and Max Weber to Edward Said and Timothy Snyder. As the world is threatened by a global wave of anti-democratic movements, the eighth edition of this book adds a new section to remind us of the origins of democratic values in the 1700s and a new concluding section focuses on how, in the 2020s, social theorists are rethinking the world in order to better understand and resist the menace of anti-democratic movements. This classic text continues to shift our current and historical understanding of social theory.