Ali Shariati was one of the major intellectual forerunners of the Islam revolution in Iran who as mastering both Islam and Western philosophy has almost single handedly crossed the line between political Islam and the (secular) Left. His intellectual heritage begs for the question: may a credible Islam Left be formed/revived or political Islam becomes the servant of reactionary and imperialism supporting forces for good.

In a world of lost hope the political-intellectual search of Hugo Chavez and the development – or maybe the sheer existence – of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a peculiar challenge for social analysis. The article reviews the political history of Venezuela in the past 20 years "from fact to fact" centred on the social, domestic and foreign policy achievements of the decade long presidency of Chavez full of vicissitudes.

The science sociology and methodology study is aiming to answer the question what is the reason behind the supposed "supremacy" of the dominant western anthropology over the anthropology (ethnology, sociology and social science in general) research in the former state-socialist countries especially in Poland. Placing his argument in the context of world system analysis, the author concludes that the reason is that the political economy conditions of science have changed namely scientific knowledge became a product as well.

The edited version of the discussion held at the Friends of Eszmelet Society traces the reasons and features of the transformation of contemporary football focusing on developments in the UK, US and East Europe.

The author of the study has examined the history of a group of workers, working in a home appliances manufacturing and other companies in Wroclaw between 1997 and 2007, and who were related to trade union Solidarity. He tries to answer the important question how the attitude of skilled and semi-skilled workers in East and Central Europe, maybe the most significant social segment in the society, developed to reject more and more bitterly the liberal elites that were their allies in the 1980s, while – lacking a credible left wing in politics – they became more and more open to neo-nationalist ideologies and parties propagating them. In the frame of a deep interview made with a worker-activist the author also tries to present what were the "self-defence" strategies applied by the workers in the storms of re-structuring and privatisation and how these strategies failed.