<P>Fully revised, with an updated bibliography and new, relevant illustrative examples based on work inspired by critical realism, this new edition of <I>Explaining Society</I> constitutes an up-to-date resource connecting methodology, theory, and empirical research. Including discussions of more recent scholarship in the field which connects critical realism with interdisciplinary research, this second edition also clarifies concepts ¿ such as retroduction and retrodiction ¿ so as to render them consistent with developments within critical realism, which are covered in a new chapter. An accessible account of the nature of society and social science, together with the methods used to study and explain social phenomena, <I>Explaining Society</I> will appeal to scholars of sociology, philosophy, and the social sciences more broadly.</P>