Lexington Books
Pages: 314
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-1-7936-2597-7 • Hardback • February 2022 • $120.00 • (£92.00)
978-1-7936-2598-4 • eBook • February 2022 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Charles Thorpe is professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Hypernormalization in Post-Normal Times
Chapter 2: From the Pathology of Normalcy to the Normalcy of Pathology
Chapter 3: Reason of State in a Global Age
Chapter 4: The Sociological Moment
Charles Thorpe has woven together Marxist critiques of neoliberal society and radical critiques of sociology to account for the failure of American sociology since Gouldner to deal with emerging issues, such as social and policy confusion, the rise of the predatory state, elite disengagement in favor of globalization, and the disempowerment of the middle and working class. Instead, sociology has chosen to contribute to the internal Balkanization of American society that facilitates these trends. This book is an intense engagement with issues which sociology has turned away from and the issue of what sociology should be.
— Stephen Turner, University of South Florida
Few thinkers are up to the task of making sense of the complex world of our post-normal times. Charles Thorpe is an exception. With fierce intelligence and committed argument, his book reveals the contradictions and the pathologies of our current times. Thorpe shows how sociology was involved in the construction of modern American liberalism and remains complicit in sanctioning post-neoliberal forms of social power. Each page drips with insight rendering coherent what seems to many of us deeply confusing times.
— Michael J. Thompson, William Paterson University