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This book examines the nature of totalitarianism as interpreted by some of the finest minds of the twentieth century, focusing on Hannah Arendt's claim that totalitarianism was an entirely unprecedented regime and that the social sciences had integrally misconstrued it. A sociologist who is a critical admirer of Arendt, the author looks sympathetically at Arendt's objections to social science and shows that her complaints were in many respects justified. Avoiding broad disciplinary endorsements or dismissals, he reconstructs the theoretical and political stakes of Arendt's encounters with prominent social scientists such as David Riesman, Raymond Aron, and Jules Monnerot. In presenting a systematic appraisal of Arendt's critique of the social sciences, the author examines what it means to see an event as unprecedented. Furthermore, he adapts Arendt and Aron's philosophies to shed light on modern Islamist terrorism, and to ask whether it should be categorized alongside Stalinism and National Socialism as totalitarian.

This book brings to light the value-centered nature of the social sciences. The work challenges the supposed separation of fact and value, and argues that human values belong to the world of fact and are the source of the ideals which govern social and political institutions. By demonstrating the close connection between the social sciences and the humanities, the author reveals how the methods of the social sciences highlight and enrich the study of such values as well-being, prosperity, rationality, and self-government. The book moves from the animating principles that make up the humanist tradition to the values which are central to the social sciences, analyzing the core teachings of these disciplines with respect to the moral issues at stake. Throughout the work, the author calls attention to the conditions that affect the emergence, realization, and decline of human values.

This book describes a new social theory of norms to provide an explanation of why people punish. Identifying mechanisms that link interdependence with norm enforcement, it reveals how social relationships lead individuals to enforce norms, even when doing so makes little sense. The book tells the whole story, from ideas, to experiments, to real-world applications. In addition to addressing longstanding theoretical puzzles—such as why harmful behavior is not always punished, why individuals enforce norms in ways that actually hurt the group, why people enforce norms which benefit others rather than themselves, why groups punish behavior that has only trivial effects, and why atypical behaviors are sometimes punished and sometimes not—it explores the implications of the theory for substantive issues, including norms regulating sex, crime, and international human rights.