This book provides a comprehensive introduction to, and selectionfrom, Jürgen Habermas's writings from the early 1960s to thepresent. The book is divided into seven sections, covering theprincipal areas of Habermas's work. Each section includes anintroduction and a selection of substantial extracts from relevantbooks. In the general introduction, Outhwaite outlines the centralthemes of Habermas's work and analyses the development of his viewsover the years. Subsequent sections are organized thematically andchronologically, so that the book will be easy to use bystudents. There are extracts from all of Habermas's major works, includinghis early work on the public sphere and on science and technology;his writings on the methodology and epistemology of the socialsciences; his work on evolution and legitimation; his theory ofcommunication and discourse ethics; his analysis of modernity andhis critique of postmodernism; and his most recent work on law andthe state. By bringing these wide-ranging contributions together in asingle volume, The Habermas Reader is an ideal teachingtext. It will also be of interest to anyone who wishes to gain anoverview of the work of one of the most important social thinkersof the twentieth century.