In the past half century, the social role of knowledge has changed profoundly. The natural attitude toward scientific knowledge in science that assigned a special status to sciences knowledge claims has lost its dominance, and the view that all knowledge is socially constructed has gained general acceptance. Science increasingly influences the political agenda in modern societies. Consequently, a new political field has emerged: knowledge politics. The fourteen essays by social scientists, philosophers, and historians cover fundamental issues, theoretical perspectives, knowledge and power, and empirical studies within this revised volume include six new contributions by Robert K. Merton, Steve Fuller, Dick Pels, Nico Stehr, Barry Schwart, and Michael Lynch.

I: Fundamental Issues; 1: The Sociology of Knowledge; 2: Durkheim and Mauss Revisited: Classification and the Sociology of Knowledge; 3: Knowledge and Utility: Implications for the Sociology of Knowledge; II: Theoretical Perspectives; 4: Toward a Sociology of Cognition; 5: The Conventional Component in Knowledge and Cognition; 6: The Fabrication of Facts: Toward a Microsociology of Scientific Knowledge; III: Knowledge and Power; 7: Knowledge and Power: An Interview by Peter Ludes; 8: Knowledge as Product and Property 1; 9: Mixing Metaphors: Politics or Economics of Knowledge?; 10: Knowledge Societies; IV: Empirical Studies; 11: Polarity and Knowledge; 12: Kausalität, Anschaulichkeit , and Individualität , or How Cultural Values Prescribed the Character and the Lessons Ascribed to Quantum Mechanics *; 13: Midwifery as Science: An Essay on the Relation between Scientific and Everyday Knowledge; 14: The Discursive Production of Uncertainty: The OJ Simpson "Dream Team" and the Sociology of Knowledge Machine *