Time and Social Theory
1. Edition May 1994
200 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world.
Through her analysis of time Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications.
1. Time in Social Theory: Destiny, Necessity, Enigma
2. From the Measure of Motion of Entropy
3. Rhythmicity: Source of Life and Form
4. Human Time Studied
5. Industrial Time and Power
6. Time Transcended
7. Time for Social Theory: Points of Departure
References
'Barbara Adam will be read well into the next century not only
for her remarkable understanding of human time but for the link she
makes with the conception of time held by physicists and
biologists.' Michael Young, Director, Institute of Community
Studies
'Very important ... an exceptionally clearly expressed account
of issues usually dealt with in the most clotted writing. It is a
genuine expression of sociological thought using the insights of
other disciplines not as 'borrowing' but as illustrations of a
direction to be followed.' Sociology
'Barbara Adam has written a superb book.' Time and
Society