Social theory is a field within which models of the nature, structure and destiny of advanced societies have been developed, communicated and contested. This subject traces the development of modern social theory from its confident Enlightenment origins to the uncertainties of the present day. It will examine the birth of sociology as a response to modernisation and industrialisation, the rise of Fascism and Communism and sociological responses to the contemporary challenges facing Western capitalist civilisation. Attention will be focussed on the enduring work of key figures such as Marx, Parsons and Foucault, placing them in their historical and intellectual contexts.