We are living in a turbulent world marked by fast, continuous social changes that affect the lives of individuals, families, communities, organizations, businesses, nation-states, and international networks. This fundamentally commits contemporary sociology to being a science of change.

This collection effectively mirrors this diversity and variety of transformations underway in today's societies and transnational spaces. Written by a group of internationally renowned sociologists, it offers a cutting edge understanding of what is happening in our life worlds, work lives and frames of social existence. Bringing up issues such as political turbulence, cultural and artistic dynamics, family changes, gender roles, migration flows and social movements, it is a timely contribution that discusses transformation and globalization and their consequences in both theoretical and substansive terms.

Illuminating and comprehensive, this book will be of immense use for sociology students on all levels, as well as lecturers, researchers and others who are interested in social life and the consequences of human action.

Arnaud Sales is Emeritus Proessor of Sociology at the University of Montreal, Canada.

PART I: INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1: Transformations in the Multiple Domains of a Turbulent World - Arnaud Sales
PART II: CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
Chapter 2: A Re-Appraisal of Agency-Structure Theories to Understand Social Change - Arnaud Sales
Chapter 3: Global Society and Polyarchic Governance - Alberto Martinelli
Chapter 4: Social Transformations and Knowledge - Nico Stehr & Bernd Weiler
PART III: RECOMPOSITION OF THE POLITICAL DOMAIN AND CHALLENGES TO CIVIL SOCIETY
Chapter 5: Political Sociology Responds to Change - Kay Lawson, Mildred Schwartz & Eva Etzioni-Halevy
Chapter 6: Global Social Movements - Politics, Subjectivity and Human Rights - Pierre Hamel, Henri Lustiger-Thaler & Louis Maheu
PART IV: THE TRANSFORMATION OF ORGANIZATIONS AND WORK
Chapter 7: Transforming Organizations - Stewart Clegg
Chapter 8: Transformations of Work in a Global Context - Employment Systems, Autonomy and Work-life Articulation as Main Challenges - Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay
Chapter 9: Reconnections - Labour Sociologies in a Globalizing Era - Carla Lipsig-Mummé & Edward Webster
Chapter 10: Returning to Professions - Julia Evetts
PART V: THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE WORLD AND CULTURE
Chapter 11: Challenging Women's Domination and Striving for Equity and the Respect of Difference - Ann Denis
Chapter 12: Family Change and Lifecourse Development - Social Transformations on the Intimate Frontiers - Susan A. McDaniel
Chapter 13: The Waning of Religious Beliefs in Thirty European Countries - Empirical Evidence - Mattei Dogan
Chapter 14: The Culture Society - An Heuristic for Analyzing Cultural Change in the Global Age - Arturo Rodriguez Morató
Chapter 15: Power and Global Sport - Zones of Prestige, Emulation and Resistance - Joseph Maguire
PART VI: TRANSFORMATION OF FRAMES AND CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL EXISTENCE
Chapter 16: Comparative Social Transformations in Urban Regimes - Sophie Body-Gendrot, Marisol Garcia & Enzo Mingione
Chapter 17: Globalization and the Transformation of Disease and Health Care - William C. Cockerham & Geoffrey B. Cockerham
Chapter 18: The Dynamics of Migration and Social Transformations - Han Entzinger