Best Books To Understand Sociology
Martin Glow
We have a wide variety of interviews recommending books on with sociology themes. Harvard sociologist Michele Lamont discusses the sociology of inequality, how inequality is societally justified and how it is addressed in different cultures. Neil Fligstein, a sociologist at Berkeley, discusses economic sociology, focusing in particular on the sociology of markets.
On other issues, Les Black, professor of sociology at Goldsmiths, London, recommends books on academia, while another British sociologist, Frank Furedi, talks about the crisis in education. Lastly, the author and novelist Maria Sveland discusses feminism.
"If we come to understand the human value and dignity of people from different backgrounds, we can do a bit to deflect inequality in our everyday interactions," says Harvard Professor and winner of the 2017 Erasmus Prize Michle Lamont. Here, she recommends five books that illuminate the sociology of inequality.
It's important to understand social aspects of economic behaviour, particularly when times of crisis reveal the shortcomings of traditional economic theory, says sociologist Neil Fligstein.
Current UK higher education policies, which treat students as consumers, are not only killing thinking but also likely to lead to a financial crisis. And yet, academia is a beautiful vocation, with the power to transform lives year in, year out. University of London professor, Les Back, picks the best books on academia.
Current UK higher education policies, which treat students as consumers, are not only killing thinking but also likely to lead to a financial crisis. And yet, academia is a beautiful vocation, with the power to transform lives year in, year out. University of London professor, Les Back, picks the best books on academia.
Religion has an ability to create groups and communities that has yet to be surpassed, argues Selina O'Grady, author of And Man Created God: A History of the World at the Time of Jesus.
American statistician Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University and author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State explains the (often surprising) realities of how Americans vote.
American statistician Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University and author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State explains the (often surprising) realities of how Americans vote.
Rather than an exciting concept that opens up societies to new ideas and cultures, the idea of 'multiculturalism' is currently out of favour, at least in popular political discourse. Yet, according to sociologist Tariq Modood, founding Director of the Bristol University Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, many of the problems we face today are crying out for multicultural solutions. He recommends the best books on multiculturalism, beginning with its development as a political theory in 1980s Canada.
Sociology is the latest scientific subject for us to cover. We have slowly built up a nice little backlog of other sciences, Statistics, Entomology, Astronomy, Physics, Evolution, Botany, Quantum Physics, and several more scientific areas.
Stigma is an illuminating excursion into the situation of persons who are unable to conform to standards that society calls normal. Disqualified from full social acceptance, they are stigmatized individuals. Physically deformed people, ex-mental patients, drug addicts, prostitutes, or those ostracized for other reasons must constantly strive to adjust to their precarious social identities. Their image of themselves must daily confront and be affronted by the image which others reflect back to them.
This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world.
The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime?
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life-;from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing-;and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
C. Wright Mills is best remembered for his highly acclaimed work The Sociological Imagination, in which he set forth his views on how social science should be pursued. Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology in the United States, calling for a humanist sociology connecting the social, personal, and historical dimensions of our lives. The sociological imagination Mills calls for is a sociological vision, a way of looking at the world that can see links between the apparently private problems of the individual and important social issues.
C. Wright Mills is best remembered for his highly acclaimed work The Sociological Imagination, in which he set forth his views on how social science should be pursued. Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology ... More
Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day a powerful and fascinating read. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ... More
This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art. More
Written from the standpoint of the social behaviorist, this treatise contains the heart of Mead's position on social psychology. The analysis of language is of major interest, as it supplied for the first time an adequate treatment of the language mechanism in relation to scientific and philosophical issues."If ... More
A landmark work in the understanding of capitalism, bourgeois society and the economics of class conflict, Karl Marx's Capital is translated by Ben Fowkes with an introduction by Ernest Mandel in Penguin Classics. One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one ... More
While Marx considered economics to be the driving force in the evolution of societies, and Weber believed religion played a role, with his protestant ethic theory, In the Sources of Social Power, Mann identifies 4 different forces - economic, military, ideological and political - and demonstrates their role ... More
In what the General Practitioner called 'this intelligent searching work', the author of "Stigma" and "Asylums" presents an analysis of the structures of social encounters from the perspective of the dramatic performance. He shows us exactly how people use such 'fixed props' as houses, clothes, and job situations; ... More
A major contribution to contemporary social theory. Not only does it provide a compelling critique of some of the main perspectives in 20th century philosophy and social science, but it also presents a systematic synthesis of the many themse which have preoccupied Habermas for thirty years. --Times Literary ... More
No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography ... More
The Civilizing Process stands out as Norbert Elias' greatest work, tracing the "civilizing" of manners and personality in Western Europe since the late Middle Ages by demonstrating how the formation of states and the monopolization of power within them changed Western society forever. More
The Structure of Social Action is a 1937 book by sociologist Talcott Parsons.In 1998 the International Sociological Association listed this work as the ninth most important sociological book of the 20th century. More
In the Middle Ages there were gaols and dungeons, but punishment was for the most part a spectacle. The economic changes and growing popular dissent of the 18th century made necessary a more systematic control over the individual members of society, and this in effect meant a change ... More
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once ... More
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