The Thought of Sorbonne Professor Michel Maffesoli (1944-): Sociologist of Modernity - Tapa dura

"... does a great service to students of cultural studies, postmodernity and everyday life in sorting out the strands of Maffesoli's thought." - Dr. Laurence Cox National University of Ireland Maynooth "Anyone concerned to discover new and creative ways of thinking about how contemporary identity politics informs and influences contemporary societies' debates about how diverse and complex civil societies might e structured in future will be extremely grateful to Mike Tyldesley." - Andrew James Brown The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths"

This book is an examination of the social theory of Professor Michel Maffesoli, Professor of Sociology at the Sorbonne and a well-known public intellectual in France. It is the first book length consideration of Professor Maffesoli's work in the English language. This work provides the reader with some relevant background about Professor Maffesoli's life and activities, and it discusses figures who are important to him and his work (such as Gilbert Durand). It goes on to provide an overview of the social theory that he has developed and honed since 1980, and in its third section it considers that theory in the light of a number of trends in social thought. The book is a starting point for an understanding of Professor Maffesoli's work and gives the reader the references needed to take their considerations further. In particular it draws upon the work of Professor Maffesoli that has not been translated into English, and so enables those who have perhaps read one or other of the titles by him that are available in English to contextualise their understanding of his point of view. It also raises a number of questions about the work of Michel Maffesoli.