As a key concept in the social sciences, alienation refers to various mental states, often identified by such terms as ?powerlessness?, ?meaninglessness?, ?anomic?, etc. Recent advances in sociological theory permit us to indicate systematically the social conditions linked to these states. A simple though exhaustive typology of the social sources of alienation? is here presented. To illustrate the typology, examples of alienation are drawn from the writings of classical and contemporary social theorists.