Table of Contents

FOREWORD
CHAPTER 1 Facing Evil. A sociological perspective
CHAPTER 2 An End to Violence
CHAPTER 3 Global Terrorism
CHAPTER 4 The Return of Racism
CHAPTER 5 The New Arena of the Social Sciences or, How to Raise the Level of Generalization.
PART 1 The Critique of the Subject
PART 2 Thinking Globally

About the Author

Michel Wieviorka is professor of sociology at the L'Ecole desHautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and President of theFondation de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.

Reviews

'Wieviorka lays out the case for thinking of "evil" as "social", asopposed to theological A work to facilitatediscussion.' Review31 'In this provocative and insightful book, Michel Wieviorka putsevil onto the agenda for the social sciences. He does this not byappealing to forces outside social life but by situating evil as anissue in social life. It is part of culturally informedunderstanding, sometimes directly linked to religion and sometimesnot. And to ignore it in the name of objectivism is to lose touchwith the world we inhabit.' Craig Calhoun, New York University 'Michel Wieviorka thinks about evil without theology.Contemporary evil is social, Wieviorka contends, and he explainshow social pathologies, no matter how heinous, must be explained insociological ways. When unequal or repressive social structuresundermine conditions for autonomy, evil actions provideopportunities for restoring the experience, no matter how illusory,of meaning and control. To fight evil we must create social justice- that is the message of this leading French sociologisttoday.' Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University 'By reintroducing evil into social theory, Michel Wieviorka hasundermined the indifference to human well-being that fed on itsabsence. By pulling on the thread of our universal liability tosuffer he unravels the traditions of Marxist anti-humanism,Bourdieu's elimination of the Subject, and Foucault's "death ofMan". Wieviorka is right to redirect us beyond the banality of eviland towards the conditions necessary for the global human Subjectto thrive.' Margaret Archer, Ecole Polytechnique Federale deLausanne