"'Alienation' may no longer be the buzzword it was a generation ago, but its central themes remain contemporary concerns: the character and meaning of our work lives, forms of power and powerlessness, questions about norms and normlessness, the individual's relation to social institutions. Richard Schacht has long argued that alienation theory can shed important light upon aspects of light in the modern world and upon our human predicament. The essays here call for a rethinking of a variety of forms of alienation in light of contemporary dynamics and a clearer understanding of the dialectic of human selfhood and social participation. They call for a renewed interest in alienation theory; they counter the myth that, with the collapse of the Soviet empire, Marx's thinking has been 'refuted'; and they argue for an enhanced sensitivity to the problem of how we describe, interpret, and evaluate the world around us in light of the complexity and diversity that alienation theory reveals" -- Back cover.