This book equips students with skills in critical thinking and theory built around nine central ideas of thought: modernity, society, self, religion, capitalism, power, gender, race, and globalization. Coverage of both classical and contemporary theorists are included, and the text is organized around the discourses of modernity, democracy, and citizenship. The end of chapter exercises build on one another and students are guided to higher order thinking and theorizing skills to formulate their own definitions, analyses, interpretations, evaluations, and syntheses of theory.