Key Ideas
About the Book Series
Series Editor: Anthony Elliott, University of South Australia
The Key Ideas series explores major concepts and pressing issues and debates in sociology and the social sciences, from class and sexuality to racism and consumption. The accessible guides offer concise and accessible overviews of core and cutting-edge topics, including class, sexuality, racism and consumption. Each volume is written by a leading expert in the field and uses the latest research findings and cutting-edge approaches from the social sciences to offer critical perspectives and lively, and starkly original interpretations of issues. With new editions redesigned to engage with major global challenges, they offer an assessment of the relevance of ideas for today’s world. Books in the Key Ideas series are perfect primers and pre-course reading for students of sociology, political science, economics, psychology, philosophy, and geography, as well as approachable introductions to contemporary issues for the interested general reader.
To discuss a proposal, please contact the commissioning editor Helen Pritt ([email protected]).
Austerity
1st Edition
By Bruno De Oliveira
July 31, 2025
Austerity is a concise, accessible overview of austerity policies, their impact on society, and possible alternatives for more just and equitable economic policies. Drawing on a range of global case studies, it encourages critical analysis of the core principles and theories of austerity. Bruno De ...
Cults
1st Edition
By Stephanie Alice Baker, Eugene McLaughlin, Chris Rojek
June 27, 2024
This engaging text introduces readers to the sociology of cults. Covering the history and current state of cult studies, this book includes topics ranging from doomsday cults and new religious movements through to self-help cults, the cult of celebrity, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs. Case ...
Racism
1st Edition
By Anthony Moran
November 30, 2023
Racism has a long history and its devastating impacts continue to spark heated, moral and political debate and give rise to social movements and widespread protest. This accessible primer provides a cogent introduction to the study and confrontation of racism in the twenty-first century, making use...
Risk
3rd Edition
By Deborah Lupton
July 20, 2023
We are living in a world in which the existence of risk is constantly debated, misinformation and disinformation are rife and spread quickly and easily through online media, and where governments and institutions continue to avoid taking decisive action even when there is general agreement that a ...
Happiness
2nd Edition
By Bent Greve, Bent Greve
June 29, 2023
This fully revised and updated edition of Happiness provides an accessible introduction to the concept of happiness and how it can be applied to public policy in order to help citizens achieve the good life. Countries around the globe want to ensure the best for their citizens. They want them to be...
Class
1st Edition
By Nick Stevenson
May 31, 2023
This accessible introductory text offers an engaging and thought-provoking discussion of class in relation to several cultural, sociological and political schools of thought and draws upon the works of a broad range of key theorists as well as contemporary thinkers to restate the ongoing importance...
Sexuality
5th Edition
By Jeffrey Weeks
December 30, 2022
Sexuality is the fifth revised and updated edition of the classic text for understanding human sexuality. This new edition brings the arguments and evidence fully up to date and explores their implication for many topical controversies, around LGBTQ+ rights, the trans experience and gender fluidity...
Consumption
1st Edition
By John Storey
October 18, 2022
This book provides a clear and wide-ranging overview of consumption as a sociological concept. Arguing that consumption is both an unavoidable part of life and an ongoing dialectical process, it gives a critical assessment of a range of theoretical approaches to the study of consumption and the ...
Exceptionalism
1st Edition
By Lars Jensen, Kristín Loftsdóttir
September 28, 2021
This volume crucially provides an analytical and comparative approach, investigating the meaning and uses of the concept of exceptionalism, while demonstrating the ways in which it manifests itself in different historical and geographical settings. Exceptionalism offers comparative case studies ...
Postcolonial Europe
1st Edition
By Lars Jensen
February 28, 2020
This book presents an overview of the direct and indirect ways in which Europe continues to be influenced by its entrenched postcolonial condition. Exploring the notion of postcolonial Europe as it characterises a Europe caught at a number of crossroads, it considers the distinctly European ...
Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement
1st Edition
By Robin Cohen, Nicholas Van Hear
December 09, 2019
This is an unusual book. Combining social science fiction, utopianism, pragmatism, sober analysis and innovative social theory, the authors address one of the biggest dilemmas of our age – how to solve the problems arising from mass displacement. As early versions of the solution proposed by Robin ...
Universal Basic Income
1st Edition
By Brian McDonough, Jessie Bustillos Morales
December 02, 2019
Universal basic income is a controversial policy which is causing a stir amongst academics, politicians, journalists and policy-makers all over the world. The idea of receiving ‘money for nothing’, with no strings attached, has for a long time appeared a crazy or radical proposal. But today, this ...