Professor Emeritus of Sociology
Göran Therborn
A Swedish-born global social scientist whose work maps power, class, inequality, modernity, welfare and cities across the world.
Göran Therborn is a global social scientist, rooted in Sweden and internationally known for work on inequality, class, state power, welfare, families, cities and modernity.
He is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. His previous appointments include Professor of Sociology at Gothenburg University, Professor of Political Science at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, co-Director of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences at Uppsala, and Affiliated Professor of Sociology at Linnaeus University.
Therborn has worked in and on all populated continents. His scholarship moves between historical sociology, political sociology, urban studies and critical social theory, with a lifelong commitment to universal freedom and equality.
Since retiring from Cambridge he has lived in Ljungbyholm, southeast Sweden. He is married and has two children, Thomas Therborn and the poet and critic Anna Hallberg.
Research Themes
A career spanning comparative sociology, political theory and global social analysis.
Inequality and Class
Life chances, class formation, power, privilege and the social costs of inequality.
States and Power
Ruling classes, state theory, welfare states and the changing authority of institutions.
Cities and Modernity
Capital cities, urban power, monuments, national projects and global urban comparison.
Families and Welfare
Family systems, sex and power, social policy and the historical routes of welfare.
Critical Theory
Marxist and radical theory, post-Marxism, anti-imperialism and the global left.
Selected Books
A small selection from the longer publications archive.
The World. A Beginner's Guide
A concise global guide to the forces shaping modern society.
Inequality and the Labyrinths of Democracy
A major late-career statement on the forms and routes of inequality.
Cities of Power
A global historical sociology of capital cities and political authority.
The Killing Fields of Inequality
An influential work on inequality, health and life expectancy.
Full CV and publication archive
The archive keeps the old site's core academic material, updated into a cleaner static format.