Frank Furedi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Furedi
Frank Furedi

Frank Furedi (born 1947, Hungary) is professor of sociology at the University of Kent, UK.

Furedi is author of several influential books on risk, most recently Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown (Continuum 2007), an analysis of the impact of terrorism post 9/11. He is a leading sociologist, and, according to research [1], the most widely cited in the UK press.

In the 1970s, Furedi founded and held the chair of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) of Great Britain - a libertarian Marxist political party, which disbanded in 1997.

He is the husband of Ann Furedi, the Chief Executive of British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK's largest independent abortion provider.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Furedi's family emigrated from Hungary to Canada after the failed 1956 uprising. He has lived in Britain since the 1970s.

The RCP published a newspaper The Next Step throughout the 1980s and the magazine Living Marxism (later relaunched as "LM") in the 1990s. Still under Furedi's guidance, the ex-RCP came to concentrate on anti-imperialist and anti-statist traditions in Marxism.

He is associated with the web journal Spiked Online. Furedi maintains that society and universities are undergoing a politically driven dumbing down process which is manifest in society's growing inability to understand and assess the meaning of risk. The rise of the environmental and green movements parallels society's growing obsession with risk which has become a commodity that some organisations are using to further their objectives. Furedi also attacks the scientific consensus on Global Warming[2], and has criticised the prominent role played by science in policy formation.[3]

Furedi's academic work was initially devoted to a study of imperialism and race relations. His books on the subject include The Mau-Mau War in Perspective, The New Ideology of Imperialism and The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race. In recent years his work has been oriented towards exploring the sociology of risk.

Furedi frequently appears in the media, expressing his view that Western societies have become obsessed with risk. He writes regularly for Spiked Online. He has also written several books on the subject of risk, offering a counterpoint to the analyses of Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, including Paranoid Parenting, Therapy Culture, and Culture of Fear.

He wrote an article about risk culture post-9/11, one of several publications from the charity Global Futures.

Furedi is a supporter of the British Humanist Association.

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Soviet Union Demystified: A Materialist Analysis, Junius Publications, 1986
  • The Mau Mau War in Perspective, James Currey Publishers, 1989
  • Mythical Past, Elusive Future: History and Society in an Anxious Age, Pluto Press, 1991
  • The New Ideology of Imperialism: Renewing the Moral Imperative, Pluto Press, 1994
  • Colonial Wars and the Politics of Third World Nationalism, IB Tauris, 1994
  • Culture of Fear: Risk Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997
  • Population and Development: A Critical Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997
  • The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race, Pluto Press, 1998
  • Courting Mistrust: The Hidden Growth of a Culture of Litigation in Britain, Centre for Policy Studies, 1999
  • Paranoid Parenting: Abandon Your Anxieties and Be a Good Parent, Allen Lane, 2001
  • Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, Routledge, 2003
  • Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting Twenty-First Century Philistinism, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004
  • The Politics of Fear. Beyond Left and Right, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005
  • Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown, Continuum International Publishing Group,2007

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sociological Research Online
  2. ^ In 2008, let us challenge the Politics of Apocalypse | spiked
  3. ^ The tyranny of science | spiked

[edit] External links

Languages