Praised for its clarity and accessibility, this fully updated edition of Critical Social Theories presents a comprehensive analysis of leading social and cultural theories today. Diverse perspectives are addressed from feminism and cultural studies to postmodernism and critical theory. Written accessibly for students and faculty, the second edition includes new chapters on the need for a new public sociology in the post 9/11 era--one that moves beyond both positivism and postmodernism. Agger updates and develops for today's world a model for this engaged sociology rooted in sixties activism, when C. Wright Mills and Tom Hayden framed the New Left as a vehicle for the sociological imagination.