CRAIG Calhoun. The Roots of Radicalism

This collection of Craig Calhoun's essays brings us back to essentials: what do we mean by the terms “class” and “radicalism,” and how do these concepts help us to understand the social movements and conflicts of early industrial society? Two overarching arguments emerge. First, we must distinguish between community-based forms of radicalism based on direct, personal relationships and local issues and later, broad class solidarities based on “large-scale systems of indirect relationships” (p. 181). Second, early industrial social and political movements in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States were not “class conflicts,” but usually struggles that mixed bourgeois and proletarian support for traditional values and relationships in the face of sweeping social and economic change. Calhoun argues that the most radical of this era's movements often sprang from strikingly conservative roots but that these traditional roots have been obscured by an obsession with notions of rationality, labor, and class. In the process, he also argues for a motivation on the part of reformers that went well beyond materialist explanations. Calhoun's book is particularly valuable for scholars with interests in early industrialization and classical social theory.

Bourgeoisie · Class conflict · Epistemology · Materialism · Political economy · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Proletariat · Social movement · Social science · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies