Göran Therborn

The institution of the family changed hugely during the course of the Twentieth Century. In this major new work, Goran Therborn provides a global history and sociology, and a comparative political analysis of the family as an institution, focusing on three dimensions of family relations: on the rights and powers of fathers and husbands; on marriage, cohabitation and extramarital sexuality; and on fertility and birth control. Therborn's empirical analysis uses a multi-disciplinary approach to show how the major family systems of the world have been formed and developed.

Ideologier handlar om hur människor formas till medvetna aktörer och om deras strävan att göra världen meningsfull och begriplig. De klassiska problemställningarna för analysen av ideologier behandlas i denna bok genom en diskussion av politiska ideologiers verkan, klassmedvetande, förhållandet mellan vetenskap och ideologi mellan samtycke och tvång. Boken ställer och besvarar en rad viktiga frågor: Genom vilka sociala processer och institutioner produceras, sprids och mottages ideologier? Vilken roll spelar ideologier i sociala förändringar? Hur förhåller sig klassideologier till andra ideologier? Hur är människors liv som samhällsmedlemmar knutna till existensiella villkor som kön och ålder, liv och död?

"Capital cities today remain central to both nations and states. They host centres of political power, not only national, but in some cases regional and global as well, thus offering major avenues to success, wealth and privilege. For these reasons capitals simultaneously become centres of "counter-power", locations of high-stakes struggles between the government and the opposition. This volume focuses on capital cities in nine sub-Saharan African countries, and traces how the power vested in them has evolved through different colonial backgrounds, radically different kinds of regimes after independence, waves of popular protest, explosive population growth and in most cases stunted economic development. Starting at the point of national political emancipation, each case study explores the complicated processes of nation-state building through its manifestation in the "urban geology" of the city - its architecture, iconography, layout and political use of urban space. Although the evolution of each of these cities is different, they share a critical demographic feature: an extraordinarily rapid process of urbanisation that is more politically than economically driven. Overwhelmed by the inevitable challenges resulting from this urban sprawl, the governments seated in most of these capital cities are in effect both powerful - wielding power over their populace -and powerless, lacking power to implement their plans and to provide for their inhabitants"--Publisher description.

This volume is one of the first titles in the series "Mappings", designed to offer readers surveys of new zones of cultural, social and political experience. This text surveys the development of the concept of ideology from Marx to the present.

"Inequality is not just about the size of our wallets. It is a socio-cultural order which, for most of us, reduces our capabilities to function as human beings, our health, our dignity, our sense of self, as well as our resources to act and participate in the world. This book shows that inequality is literally a killing field, with millions of people dying premature deaths because of it. These lethal effects of inequality operate not only in the poor world, but also, and increasingly, in rich countries, as Therborn demonstrates with data ranging from the US, the UK, Finland and elsewhere. Even when they survive inequality, millions of human lives are stunted by the humiliations and degradations of inequality linked to gender, race and ethnicity, and class. But this book is about experiences of equalization too, highlighting moments and processes of equalization in different parts of the world - from India and other parts of Asia, from the Americas, as well as from Europe. South Africa illustrates the toughest challenges. The killing fields of inequality can be avoided: this book shows how"--Back cover.