Designed to place criminological theory at the cutting edge of contemporary debates, this book incorporates many exciting discussions in the social sciences and philosophy of knowledge concerning the issues of modernity and post-modernism.

Narrating the Mood of the Times: Confusion, Self-Doubt, and Ambivalence. The Problem of Modernity. The Theorists of Modernity: An Introduction to Max Weber, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Freidrich Nietzsche. The Problem of Classical Criminology: Stabalising Disorder through Law: Or How to Achieve the Rule of Law and Hide the Chaos of Early Modernity. Reading the Texts of Classical Criminology. Criminological Positivism I. Criminological Positivism II. Criminological Positivism III. Positivism and the Dream of Organised Modernity. Morality, Normalcy and Modernity. Locality and Criminology. Criminology and the Culture of Modernity. Culture and Crime in the Post-Modern Condition. Labelling Theory, and the work of David Matza. Crime and the Existentialist Dilemma. Modernity, Gender and Crime. Contemporary Social Stratification and the Development of the Underclass. Building Criminological Theory in Post-Modernism