{"title":"Robert Alun Jones","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"emile-durkheim-book-robert-alun-jones-9780803923348","title":"Emile Durkheim","description":"This volume focuses on the four books by Durkheim which are generally accorded \"classic\" status: The Division of Labor in Society (1893), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897), and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912). In considering each of these works, Jones gives an account of Durkheim′s intentions and beliefs, and why he held these beliefs, taking into consideration their social and historical context. In this discussion Jones also explains how Durkheim held some beliefs because he held other beliefs, in the sense that some beliefs provided his reasons for holding other beliefs. The author then follows this with a critical assessment of Durkheim′s beliefs, indicating where these reasons were or were not insufficient, either by Durkheim′s standards or our own.  This book provides an excellent introduction to these four works in particular, and to Durkheim′s sociological theories in general. It will be useful to upper-division undergraduates, as well as graduate students in sociology, philosophy, and intellectual history. Researchers and instructors will find it a valuable resource for lectures and research.  \"A remarkable work. . . . From presuppositions to conclusions, the presentation of Durkheimian thought is exceptionally clear, concise and pertinent. Jones succeeds in avoiding the traps associated with a summary, staying true to the essential ideas of the sociologist.\"  --Archives de Sciences Sociales des  Religions (Translated from French)  \" ′Translating′ Durkheim′s central ideas into undeniably more accessible language. Jones always stays close to the texts, and, in tune with his first goal, his work is a relatively accurate account of Durkheim′s ideas. In addition, Emile Durkheim is a helpful reference for specific points and definitions.\"  --Contemporary Sociology","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49655276929297,"sku":"GOR010912585","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367491899665,"sku":"CIN0803923341G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52138640408849,"sku":"NLS9780803923348","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0803923341.jpg?v=1751362432"},{"product_id":"secret-of-the-totem-book-robert-alun-jones-9780231134385","title":"The Secret of the Totem","description":"Though it is now discredited, totemism once captured the imagination of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, James Frazer, and other prominent Victorian thinkers. In this lively intellectual history, Robert Alun Jones considers the construction of a theory and the divergent ways religious scholars, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, and cultural theorists drew on totemism to explore and define primitive and modern societies' religious, cultural, and sexual norms. Combining innovative readings of individual scholars' work and a rich portrait of Victorian intellectual life, Jones brilliantly traces the rise and fall of a powerful idea. First used to describe the belief systems of Native American tribes, totemism ultimately encompassed a range of characteristics. Its features included belief in a guardian spirit that assumed the form of an a particular animal; a prohibition against marrying outside the clan combined with a powerful incest taboo; a sacrament in which members of the totemic clan slaughtered a representative of the totemic species; and the tracing of descent through the female rather than the male. These attributes struck a chord with the late Victorian mentality and its obsession with inappropriate sexual relations, evolutionary theory, and gender roles. Totemism represented a set of beliefs that, though utterly primitive and at a great evolutionary distance, reassured Victorians of their own more civilized values and practices.  Totemism's attraction to Victorian thinkers reflects the ways in which the social sciences construct their objects of study rather than discovering them. In discussing works such as Freud's Totem and Taboo or Frazer's The Golden Bough, Jones considers how theorists used the vocabulary of totemism to suit their intellectual interests and goals. Ultimately, anthropologists such as A. A. Goldenweiser, Franz Boas, and Claude Levi-Strauss argued that totemism was more a reflection of the concerns of Victorian theorists than of the actual practices and beliefs of \"primitive\" societies, and by the late twentieth century totemism seemed to have disappeared altogether.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51828471300369,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51828471890193,"sku":"NGR9780231134385","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780231134385.jpg?v=1752755000"},{"product_id":"development-of-durkheim-s-social-realism-book-robert-alun-jones-9780521022101","title":"The Development of Durkheim's Social Realism","description":"Drawing on a historicist perspective, this book explores the development of Durkheim's social realism and argues that it was less a sociological method than a way of speaking and thinking about social phenomena. Using for the first time the newly-discovered lecture notes from Durkheim's philosophy class of 1883-4, Professor Jones explores the significance of German social science in Durkheim's thought. The Development of Durkheim's Social Realism will be of immense value to graduate students and scholars in sociology, social theory, social and political philosophy and the history of ideas.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52333193855249,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52333194379537,"sku":"NLS9780521022101","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521022101.jpg?v=1758154005"},{"product_id":"development-of-durkheim-s-social-realism-book-robert-alun-jones-9780521650458","title":"The Development of Durkheim's Social Realism","description":"Drawing on a historicist perspective, this book explores the development of Durkheim's social realism and argues that it was less a sociological method than a way of speaking and thinking about social phenomena. Using for the first time the newly-discovered lecture notes from Durkheim's philosophy class of 1883-4, Professor Jones explores the significance of German social science in Durkheim's thought. The Development of Durkheim's Social Realism will be of immense value to graduate students and scholars in sociology, social theory, social and political philosophy and the history of ideas.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52474969096465,"sku":"NLS9780521650458","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53358109032721,"sku":"NIN9780521650458","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521650458.jpg?v=1759841934"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-robert-alun-jones.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}