Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory

There are two opposing models for what drives social change, says Callinicos (politics, U. of York, England). The structural, championed by Karl Marx, considers class-relations and interests to be the important factors, with individuals being mere personifications and carriers of them. The intentional, championed by Max Weber, sees individual interests and behavior as the core factor, with social structures being magnifications and multiplications of them. He sets out to establish the extent to which the two perspectives are compatible. The first edition was published in 1987. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR