This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue
on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about
novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This
dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics,
language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social
transitions to capitalism, among other contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a
number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An
emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which
offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal
change.