This book is built upon a series of critical encounters with major figures in classical and present-day social and political thought. The volume offers not only a challenging critique of major traditions of social and political analysis, but unique insights into the ideas which Anthony Giddens has developed over the past two decades.

The volume includes discussions of politics and sociology in the thought of Max Weber, together with analyses of Durkheim's political sociology and his interpretation of individualism and solidarity in modern societies. Various more contemporary figures are also subjected to critical dissection and appraisal, most notably Habermas, Foucault, Marcuse, Garfinkel and Popper.

The work therefore serves as a comprehensive introduction to some of the main debates preoccupying the social sciences and politics. A number of unifying themes associated with Gidden's standpoint run through each of the chapters: the methodological reconstruction of social investigation, the reinterpretation of modernity and the reformulation of a critical theory of politics.