This brand new book by Sage Publications - Creative Social Research - sheds new light on social theory and calls for a new articulation of the practice and ideal of understanding at the levels of self, culture and society.

In fact, this valuable document gives voice to the unsung heroes of the worldwide struggle for social justice, a value-based society and a transformed humanity and which identifies the huge reservoir of creativity that resides in contemporary social movements.

As is well known, modern social science – sociology and large parts of especially non-normative political science – developed as a part of the attempts to understand the nature of modern society and culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and its tribulations, out of the "Great Transformation" – the transition from traditional to modern societies. The roots of these developments of the modern social space are to be found in the decomposition of the older "traditional" order, above all of "traditional" legitimation of political regimes, in the crystallization and institutionalization of the modern cultural and political programme; in the concomitant constitution of the modern political order in Europe; the development of new capitalist political economy and the market as a major regulative mechanism there of’ and of new autonomous social forces and of the relations of these forces to the new emerging modern state – first the territorial absolutist, then the post-revolutionary nation state.

It was in the context of these developments that there crystallized the specific modern discourse about the problematic of (modern) social order which focused to a large extent on the exploration of the possibilities that some bases of social cohesion and o moral commitment to social order may develop in a society in which such order is no longer embedded in a traditional social and moral framework, and regulated by traditionally relatively closed social formations.

This fascinating book brings together work from scholars in South Asia and Europe and covers a wide range, from philosophy of history to critical reflection upon social science and methodology, economics, and development studies. The probing articles combine multiple dimensions of analysis. And, the conjunction of diverse perspectives from different geographies and cultural settings leads to innovative findings.

There has been an unprecedented flourishing of new social movements around the world in recent years. As per this incredible book, this revival has opened our eyes to wider horizons and strengthened our confidence in the fact that another world is possible.