This volume brings together essays that critically assess Michael Mann's sociology. The major works discussed here are The Sources of Social Power, Volume I: A History from the Beginning to 1760 AD (1986) and Volume II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760–1914 (1993). We shall have to wait for Volume III, which will take us to the present day, because Mann has concentrated for the last decade on another project: two volumes which have just been published entitled Fascists (2004) and The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (2005). Fascists is a comparative historical sociology of the six main fascist regimes, and the companion volume, The Dark Side of Democracy, covers the main modern instances of ethnic cleansing. He has now returned to working on the third volume, to be called ‘Globalizations’. Still, we already have some indications of what is to come in the third volume from various articles (see the list of his publications at the end of this book) and from his recent book Incoherent Empire (2003), an analysis of America's role in the world today.

This introduction is intended for orientation. In the first part, I provide a brief introduction to Mann's sociology. In the second, I will give an overview of the contributions to the volume.