Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Albert Hirschman on Uncertainty

  

  Albert Hirschman was a particularly important non-conformist in 20th-century social science. (Here is an earlier discussion of Jeremy Adelman's biography of... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2021 SOCIETY

• Social Change and Agency

  

  Much of the drama of history is found in processes of large social and political change, both slow and rapid. The sudden collapse of the Soviet system in 1989... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2021 SOCIETY

• New Email Feed for Understanding Society

  

  I have some welcome news for readers who rely on the Feedburner email feed to receive the Understanding Society blog. Since Google is no longer supporting... Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2021 SOCIETY

• Tony Judt on Twentieth-century Marxism

  

  Tony Judt was especially astute when it came to linking history and intellectuals. One strand of thought in his collection of essays, Reappraisals: Reflections... Read more

  Posted on 15 August 2021 SOCIETY

• Do Norms and Moral Attitudes Change Over Generations?

  

  Moral philosophers have often written of ethical obligations, principles, and theories as if they were timeless and unchanging. Kant, for example, argued that... Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2021 SOCIETY

• Evil and the Philosophy of History

  

  images: Two residents of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad)Vast numbers of words have been written about the atrocities of the twentieth century -- about the... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2021 SOCIETY

• The Warsaw Experience of Janina Bauman

  

  Janina Bauman, along with her sister Sophie and her mother Alina, miraculously survived the slaughter of the Jews of Warsaw and the crushing of the Warsaw ghett... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2021 SOCIETY

• Guest Post by Izabela Wagner on Zygmunt Bauman

  

  Izabela Wagner, author of Bauman: A Biography, is Professor of Sociology at Collegium Civitas (Poland) and fellow at Institute Convergence Migration (Paris).... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2021 SOCIETY

• Kołakowski on Stalinism and Reform

  

  A recent post featured the evolution of the thought of Zygmunt Bauman. There I mentioned a comparison with his Warsaw contemporary, Leszek Kołakowski, and... Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2021 SOCIETY

• How Bauman Became Bauman

  

  Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was an influential voice in the world of sociological theorizing. In the second part of his career -- following his expulsion as a... Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2021 SOCIETY

• Did the Iliad Have an Author?

  

  Since this is probably the best known text from the ancient Greek world, one might find the question a puzzling one: of course the Iliad had an author; it was... Read more

  Posted on 05 July 2021 SOCIETY

• Readers of Understanding Society Using the Email Feed ...

  Greetings, all,Google has informed all publishers on Blogspot (the host site for Understanding Society) that it will no longer be supporting the Feedburner emai... Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2021 SOCIETY

• Decision-making for Big Physics

  

  Big science is largely dominant in many areas of science -- for example, high-energy physics, medical research, the human genome project, and pandemic research. Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2021 SOCIETY

• The Holocaust "comparability" Debate

  

  The question of how to understand the Holocaust has troubled historians since the first knowledge of the war of extermination against the Jews of Europe became... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2021 SOCIETY

• Experiencing War, Genocide, and Totalitarianism (Tony Judt)

  

  photo: Manès SperberTony Judt's historical writings about the twentieth century are brilliant, and highly relevant to the research I'm pursuing on the evils of... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2021 SOCIETY

• Multinational Corporate Accountability and Control During the Nazi Period

  

  In a previous post I considered the question of the culpability of multinational corporations with affiliates in wartime Nazi Germany (link). Read more

  Posted on 05 June 2021 SOCIETY

• Explaining GOP Behavior

  

  If only Chuck Tilly were still with us ... I'd give a lot to hear his interpretation of the behavior of GOP officials throughout large swaths of the country,... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2021 SOCIETY

• Forced Labor and Multinational Corporations

  

  What role did American multinational auto companies play in the rearmament of Germany during the early period of Nazi rule? And to what extent did these... Read more

  Posted on 31 May 2021 SOCIETY

• Five Easy Pieces (for the Social Sciences)

  

  Social scientists are generally interested in "explaining" social outcomes: why did such-and-so take place as it did? Why did the Indochina War occur, and why... Read more

  Posted on 28 May 2021 SOCIETY

• The Great Threat to Democracy

  

  Democracies have fallen to strongmen, tyrants-in-waiting, bullies, thugs, spewers-of-bombast. But these powerful personalities are not the greatest threat to... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2021 SOCIETY