Sociologist Ken Tucker's new book,
which places sociologist Anthony Giddens's work in the context of
other theoretical positions and research traditions, is newly
available in the United States. His first book, French Revolutionary
Syndicalism and the Public Sphere, was published by Cambridge
University Press in 1996.
When Associate Professor of Sociology Ken Tucker decided to write a book on sociologist Anthony Giddens, placing the renowned social theorist's work in the context of other theoretical positions and research traditions for the first time, he took on a monumental task. To discuss the complex ideas of the man considered to be the most prominent English-speaking social theorist in the world today, Tucker read or reread all of Giddens's books. This is one tall order, considering that Giddens has published one (often dense) book, and sometimes two, every year since 1970; these tomes cover everything from historical materialism to the West's notions of intimacy and the self, in prose that the New Yorker has described as "authoritative and unforgiving."
Still, it is easy to see why Tucker is attracted to his subject, who is both an intellectual powerhouse and a popular figure in Britain. In intellectual circles, Giddens's name is mentioned in the same breath as such giants of sociology as Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Michel Foucault, yet he often appears on television and in the newspapers in England.
Giddens's consideration of such profound questions as the formation of cultural identities, the dynamics of modernity, and the fate of the nation-state has influenced scholars, of course. But as director of the prestigious London School of Economics, and the primary intellectual influence on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Giddens's ideas about society carry considerable political weight; they have moved from the realm of social theory into social practices that are helping the British government redefine the welfare state and work toward modernizing its infamous state bureaucracy.
Designed for undergraduate and graduate students, Tucker's book, Anthony Giddens and Modern Social Theory, was published by Sage Publications in Britain in 1998 and became available in this country only last month. It is also being translated into Korean for a publisher in that country. Since he was a graduate student in the 1970s, Tucker has been attracted to Giddens's work, and a high point for the MHC sociologist and author was interviewing Giddens for several hours in London for the purpose of "clarifying Giddens's theoretical approach." Giddens found Tucker's book fair and comprehensive, and is considering adding MHC to his lecture schedule. Giddens is famous for giving well-organized and dynamic lectures delivered completely from memory.
Tucker presents Giddens's theories chronologically and examines the influence on him of theorists such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Erving Goffman, Jurgen Habermas, Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Norbert Elias, and Talcott Parsons, as well as schools of thought such as feminism, ethnomethodology, Marxism, symbolic interactionism, and postmodernism, placing Giddens in context. Although he acknowledges the validity of criticism surrounding Giddens, who has been described as a "Utopian realist," Tucker admires him as a visionary thinker.
"He addresses new issues neglected by most social theory, such as the nature of modernity/postmodernity, the rise of a new, reflexive, risk society, and the importance of gender and ecological issues in this new social world," Tucker says. "Giddens has admirably attempted to take what is best in sociological theory and formulate it in the context of changing social circumstances."
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