This revised edition of Patrick Baert?s widely acclaimed Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, now benefitting from the collaboration of Filipe Carreira da Silva has been brought right up–to–date with cutting–edge developments in social theory today. It offers an easy–to–read but provocative account of the development of social theory, covering a range of key figures and classic schools of thought. The authors bridge the gap between philosophy and social theory, locating the theoretical views of individuals such as Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens and Jurgen Habermas within wider historical traditions. The revised edition includes new material on actor–network theory, French pragmatist sociology and cultural sociology, and discusses contemporary social thinker such as Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Manuel Castells, Randall Collins, Michael Mann, Saskia Sassen and Theda Skocpol. The authors conclude with a bold, new pragmatist agenda for social theory and the social sciences. ...