This comprehensive reader provides students and academics with access to the writers and perspectives that are shaping some of the most exciting social thinking today, with the editors placing key figures in lively debate with each other. The first section sets out some of the main schools of thought, including Habermas and Honneth on New Critical Theory, Jameson and Hall on Cultural Studies, and Foucault and Laclau and Mouffe on poststructuralism. The sections that follow trace theory debates as they become more issues-based and engaged, looking at: concepts such as justice and truth the social meaning of nationalism, multiculturalism, globalization identity debates around gender, sexuality, race, post-coloniality. This carefully selected collection of articles has been fine tuned to ensure readers have the right selection in the best structure to get to grips with the recent dramatic shift in the nature of social theory