What is the relevance of Luc Boltanski's 'pragmatic sociology of critique' to central issues in contemporary social and political analysis? In seeking to respond to this question, this book contains critical commentaries from prominent social theorists attempting to map out the influence and broad scope of Boltanski's oeuvre.

The fact that Luc Boltanski is widely regarded as one of the most influential French sociologists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries should be reason enough for putting together a collection of essays concerned with the major intellectual contributions that he has made to the humanities and social sciences. Boltanski has emerged as the most prominent, and also most innovative, French sociologist since the death of Pierre Bourdieu in 2002. It is ironic that, despite both the magnitude and the originality of Boltanski's oeuvre, one finds only few systematic commentaries, let alone edited books, on his work in the vast industry of contemporary sociological enquiry. The purpose of this volume is to fill this gap in the literature by creating opportunities for debate capable of representing the wide range of discussions that Boltanski's writings have sparked amongst researchers in the humanities and social sciences over the past decades.