{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.027364663890541343, 'fraction_numerical': 0.015466983938132063, 'mean_word_length': 5.138686131386861, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Elements of Social Theory. By Barnes Barry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. 263p. $29.95.Politics, Sociology, and Social Theory: Encounters with Classical and Contemporary Social Thought. By Giddens Anthony. Stanford University Press, 1995. 304p. $45.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.

These two recent books, both by respected social theorists, offer a valuable look at the development of classical social theory since the middle of the nineteenth century and its relevance at the end of the twentieth century. In the final years of this century, it is highly pertinent to ask whether social theorizing largely produced before the end of the nineteenth century can possibly serve to illuminate contemporary society. (By classical social theory these authors mean roughly the theories of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, along with subsequent elaborations and criticisms of these theories.) Are the "classics" of social theory of continuing relevance to our own attempts to understand and explain important social processes? Or have events and ideas superseded them? Giddens and Barnes have each done deep and important work on the traditions of social theory, so one reads these books with interest and high expectation. The books are highly complementary, in that Giddens provides a thoughtful historical discussion of the traditions of social theory, while Barnes offers a developed account of how the currents of this tradition ought to be deployed in contemporary social theorizing. Barnes wishes to provide a synthesis of an adequate social theory, taking account of the theoretical insights of classical social theory as well as well-developed criticisms of those theories.