This book is a philosophical, cultural and sociological study of private collecting, which is considered a special form of individual self-realization in person’s spare time, and a way of self-affirmation. The author offers an original perspective on cultural, philosophical, social and economic aspects of collecting. Extensive supplements included in the publication provide a clear illustration of the diversity and complexity of the phenomenon of collecting.

This book is written in an easy and accessible language and can be interesting for not only for specialists in cultural scientists and sociologists of culture, but also for a wider group of readers.

The author uses the tools of modern economic sociology to study complicated and often conflicting interactions in the supply chain between retailers and their suppliers. Using proprietary quantitative and qualitative data and empirical approach, he demonstrates how the power of market penetrates into all business transactions and how the competition leads to the development of social ties. The underlying causes of conflicts are revealed, as well as the economic meaning of admission and other bonus fees imposed by retailers on their suppliers. The drafting and the debates on the Federal Law “On the basics of state regulation of trade in the Russian Federation” (No. 381-FZ) is used as the case for a detailed research of the mechanisms behind the change of game rules.

This monograph is devoted to debates about the place of religion in modern society  that have taken place among sociologists and social theorists since the end of the nineteenth century. The author focuses on the history of secularization theory, which for many years dominated the sociology of religion and proclaimed the incompatibility of religion and modern society.  According to this thesis, religion is doomed to an inevitable loss of its social significance. The book details the ideas of key secularization theorists, including Talcott Parsons, Peter Berger, Bryan Wilson, Thomas Luckmann, and David Martin. It also analyzes the principles on which secularization theory was built and the criticism it has been subjected to since the late 1970s. It then surveys attempts to update the theory in the 1980s and 1990s and the reasons for the crisis of secularization theory and its gradual decline in the early 2000s. The theory of secularization developed in Soviet sociology is considered separately. This volume will be useful  for researchers, students studying social theory and the sociology of religion, and all those interested in contemporary religious processes.