Böcker av Irving Horowitz

The title, Behemoth, derives from the Hebrew word Behemah-a beast, an enormous creature, monstrously huge and vast. It is an apt description of the State on the eve of the twenty-first century. Loved by few, vilified by many from all perspectives, it nonetheless continues to grow; by turns rivaling and co-opting that more pleasant-sounding word: Society. Political sociology aims to define and understand the interrelationship between these two huge terms: State and Society.Continuing in a path begun by Horowitz in the 1950s in The Idea of War and Peace in Contemporary Social and Philosophical Thought, expanded upon in the 1970s with Foundations of Political Sociology, this summing up in the late 1990s is an effort to extract and evolve the canon of political sociology. Starting with Montesquieu, Horowitz proceeds through the European experience of Rousseau, Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Sorel, and Weber. He then takes the field on its tangled migration to America with the Frankfurt School in exile, followed by searching chapters on Schumpeter, Mills, Arendt, and Huntington, among others.The result is a stunning revaluation of the intellectual sources of the present day divisions between statists and socialists, welfarists and individualists, advocates of dictatorship and of democracy, mandated rules and voluntary association, hard realists and soft utopians, a world without states and a world with a single state. Horowitz does not offer the usual evolutionary notion of doctrines, but a canon embedded in and embattled with the societies they aim to serve or overthrow in the present as in the past. The result is a major recasting of the theory and practice of social science and normative frameworks.The final chapter offers Horowitz's own prognosis of what we can expect in the recasting of the Welfare State to include the Welfare Society, and its growing nemesis the global economy which threatens to engulf State and Society alike in a return to civilizational concerns. This is an essential text for policy-makers and social scientists interested in macroscopic changes in the political order.

In his new introduction to The Anarchists, Horowitz points out that anarchism is an ideology in search of a movement, and also a psychology in search of a polity

When initially published in 1972, Foundations of Political Sociology was acknowledged to be the first unified study of the field

Professing Sociology was originally published at a time when sociology commanded widespread interest and public funding

*Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Biography and Autobiography This is the story of the making of a world-famous sociologist

This volume reissues the entire corpus of Veblen's writings, with introductions written for the purpose of bringing the mast of economic theory to the attention of a new generation. The work also contains commentary on Veblen by David Riesman, Douglas Dowd, Max Lerner, Daniel Bell and others.

Review essays and statements written for special occasions may reveal as much about the writer as those written about; this is the presumption undergirding this collection of thirty-five years of criticism and commentary by Irving Louis Horowitz

Professing Sociology was originally published at a time when sociology commanded widespread interest and public funding

"Behemoth", derives from the Hebrew word "Behemah" - a beast. It is an apt description of the State, which grows by turns rivalling and co-opting Society. Political sociology aims to define and understand the relationship between State and Society. This text evolves the canon of political sociogy.

Irving Louis Horowitz offers commentaries drawn from a variety of public occasions to explain the improbable evolutionary event of the human race. He draws on his personal knowledge of 50 figures from the world of 20th-century social science, from Arendt and Aron to Veblen and Wildavsky.

In his new introduction to "The Anarchists", Horowitz points out that anarchism is an ideology in search of a movement, and also a psychology in search of a polity. "The Anarchists" is a collection of theories and practices in the words of those who have rebelled against the restrictive institutions and oppressive conditions of state power.

When initially published in 1972, Foundations of Political Sociology was acknowledged to be the first unified study of the field. It still provides a cross-fertilization of knowledge concerning the interrelation of social class and political power. Taking into account new specializations in social theory, the book covers all major social systems on a comparative international basis. The opening remarks prepared for this new printing provide an estimate of how the field has changed during the past quarter century, and what unexpected challenges have arisen in areas of public trust and personal privacy.This book examines fascism, communism, anarchism, conservatism, and liberalism as systems of rule as well as domains of theory. It is thus a unique effort at linking problems of history with problems of policy. The six sections of the book detail the historical and theoretical antecedents of this relatively new hybrid area in social research: policy coordinates of political sociology, types of social systems, forms of political ideologies, polarities of revolution and counter-revolution, civil-military relations, mass vs. elite contradictions, and threads of consensus and conflict running through these themes."Horowitz presents as his central thesis that in today's world no economic determinism can do justice to social reality. Foundations is the work of a politically sensitive and knowledgeable scholar."-Louis Schneider, Social Forces"Foundations of Political Sociology reflects extensive teaching and research in the area of political sociology. The book combines analytical insight with a provocative cutting edge and represents the best of Professor Horowitz."-Thomas R. McFaul, The Annals"Horowitz's political stance is interesting. Though he knows the radical literature, he distances himself from it. He sympathizes with everyone and strives to be provocative and yet elusive-a personal voice in a dogmatic discipline."-W.J.M. Mackenzie, Political Studies

Arguing that at its best, information technology can be harnessed to facilitate the expression of democratic thought, this book places publishing in America in its political and commercial setting and suggests that by providing better access to production and technology, there is great hope to liberate humankind from ignorance and ideology.

The Cuban Revolution did not start with the entrance of guerrillas into Havana on January 1, 1959. As Castro himself made clear, that event culminated several years of armed insurrection against Batista regime. This volume explains theory and practice of the regime, absence of internal opposition, and persistence of external support for Castro.