Understanding Society

Bertolt Brecht composed his play Life of Galileo (1939) ( link ) while on the run in Denmark from Nazi Germany in 1938. Brecht was a determ...

Marx's theory of social class is founded on the idea of conflict of interest defined by the property system.  Marx puts the point this w...

George Orwell is celebrated for his recognition of the role of political lies in the conflicts of his time. For example: "Political lan...

We often think of Socrates as the ultimate "critical free thinker". He antagonized many in Athens through his relentless questioni...

A recurring theme in Understanding Society for the past several years is the occurrence of unfathomable atrocity in the twentieth century. ...

MI Finley (1912-1986) played a transformative role in the development of studies of the ancient world in the 1960s through the 1980s. He con...

The years following the collapse of the socialist-Stalinist regimes of eastern Europe were not comfortable for the people of the GDR, Romani...

Do organizations have properties that are in some recognizable way independent from the behaviors and intentions of the individuals who inha...

It is noteworthy that some of the very best historical research and writing of the 1930s through 1970s in Britain was carried out by a group...

For the past six months or so I've been wrestling with how to reformulate my own thinking about the nature of the social world -- the na...