From Societas to World Society

Volker H. Schmidt, Ph.D. (1995), University of Bremen, is currently a Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. His main areas of specialization are social theory, conceptual analysis and history, and global social change.

• AcknowledgementsList of FiguresConventions1 Introduction: Society as a Social Science ConceptPART 1: Foundations: Fifth Century BCE to the Late Middle AgesIntroduction2 The Roman Societates1 The Economic Societas2 The Military Societas3 Societas Civilis3 After the Collapse of Empire: Societas and Societas Civils in the Medieval Age4 The Medieval Theory of Civil Society: Law, Theology, and Philosophy1 The Evolution of Roman Law2 The Evolution of Christian Theology and Canon Law3 The Evolution of Civil Society Theory5 Fast Forward: Societas in the Modern AgeConcluding SummaryPART 2: Political Theories of Society and the Emergence of Sociology, 17th to Early 20th CenturiesIntroduction6 Social Contract Theories: Althusius, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Spencer7 Society and Community: Ferdinand Tönnies1 Society2 Community8 Two Classical Sociologists: Max Weber and Émile Durkheim1 Weber2 DurkheimConcluding SummaryPART 3: 20th Century Theories of SocietyIntroduction9 Talcott Parsons10 Niklas Luhmann11 Jürgen Habermas12 Pierre BourdieuConcluding SummaryPART 4: Globalization and the Emergence of “World Society” Introduction13 Challenges to Sociology’s Default Model of Society14 Responses: the World Society Theories of Immanuel Wallerstein and John W. Meyer1 Wallerstein2 Meyer15 A Comprehensive Alternative: Luhmann Again – and BeyondConcluding Summary16 Conclusion: Toward a Tenable Concept of SocietyBibliographyIndex