This book connects theorists and their work to larger themes and ideas. All too often, in the opinion of the authors, theory texts focus too much on individual theorists and insufficiently on the relationship between their theories, and how these have contributed, in turn, to the evolution of ideas concerning social life. Treatment of individual theories and theorists is balanced with the development of key themes; ideas about social life (introduced in Chapter 1) which then reappear in the discussion of individual theorists and their work. A key organizing principle of this text is to trace major schools of thought over the past 150 years as they appear and reappear in different chapters. Section 1 introductions help remind students of the "big picture" within which any given theory or theorist is only one part. A consistent organization and presentation within chapters helps provide students with a context for learning and a means of much more easily comparing and contrasting theorists and their ideas. Important, new voices in a text for social theory: In Chapter 2, Harriet Martineau is introduced as one of sociology's founders. From then on, the views of women theorists and others are represented in far more than token fashion. Examples include W.E.B. DuBois, Marianne Weber, Charlotte Gilman, Rosa Luxemburg, Joseph Schumpeter, V. I. Lenin, Niklas Luhmann, Theda Skocpol, Erik Wright, Elman Service, Arlie Hochschild, Dorothy Smith, Patricia Hill Collins, and Immanual Wallerstein. ? A timeline showing when social theorists lived and wrote and connecting their biographies to important social events over 300 years is at the back of the text. "The organization of every chapter along similar lines provides a consistency in presentation that encourages comparisons among the theorists...[The authors] do a very good job presenting overlooked theorists and making their relevance to social theorizing /doing sociology clear." --Joan Alway, formerly University of Miami "The strengths of this text are the breadth of theories covered, the integration of gender-related topics--family, work, religion; the use of substantial quotes from primary texts; the consistent inclusion of methodological issues; ...and the goals of the project to provide an expansive and readable theory text. I have no doubt that it will find a solid position in the field of popular theory texts for undergraduate course use." --Kathleen Slobin, North Dakota State University
Bert N. Adams (Ph.D., University of North Carolina) is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a former President and currently a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations. He has taught sociological theory extensively, both in East Africa and at the University of Wisconsin, and also teaches and writes on the sociology of the family. He is the author of several books, including the introductory textbook THE FAMILY: A SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION, 5TH EDITION (Harcourt Brace 1995) and SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY (Pine Forge Press 2001). With David M. Klein, he served as co-editor of the Understanding Families Series with Sage, which produced 20 books between 1995 and 2002. He is well connected with family sociologists throughout the world. R. A. Sydie has been professor of sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton for the past 30 years and is the current chair of the department of sociology. Her research interests include sociological theory, art and culture, and gender studies. Professor Sydie is the author of Natural Women, Cultured Men. Her latest research project involves a historical examination of sociological work on love and eroticism.
Introduction PART ONE: THE EUROPEAN ROOTS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY The Origins of Sociological Theory Theorizing after the French Revolution - Saint-Simon, Comte and Martineau PART TWO: CONSERVATIVE THEORIES Evolutionism and Functionalism - Spencer and Sumner Social Realism and Functionalism Extended - Durkheim PART THREE: RADICAL THEORY Radical Anti-Capitalism - Marx and Engels Marxism Extended - Lenin and Luxemburg PART FOUR: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF COMPLEXITY AND FORM Social Action and Societal Complexity - Max Weber and Marianne Weber The Sociology of Form and Content - Simmel PART FIVE: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF POLITICS AND ECONOMICS Political Sociological Theories - Pareto and Michels Economic Sociological Theories - Veblen and Schumpeter PART SIX: OTHER VOICES IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIZING Society and Gender - Gilman and Webb Sociological Theory and Race - Du Bois Society, Self and Mind - Cooley, Mead and Freud PART SEVEN: TWENTIETH-CENTURY FUNCTIONALISM AND BEYOND Twentieth-Century Functionalism - Parsons and Merton Systems, Structuration and Modernity - Luhmann and Giddens PART EIGHT: CRITICISM, MARXISM AND CHANGE Critical Theory The Frankfurt School and Habermas Marxism since 1930 Socio-Cultural Change Evolution, World Systems and Revolution PART NINE: TRANSITIONS AND CHALLENGES Mid-Twentieth-Century Sociology Symbolic Interactionism - Blumer, Goffman and Hochschild Rational Choice and Exchange - Coleman Feminist Sociological Theory - Smith and Collins Knowledge, Truth and Power Foucault's Discourse and the Feminist Response Final Thoughts on Sociological Theorizing
"I like the idea of a more inclusive sociological theory text. It's good to see the work of women and people of color integrated into this book....As we move beyond telling the story of a fairly homogeneous academic elite, we also begin to make social theory and theorizing more accessible to our increasingly diverse students." -- Robert E. L. Roberts Put simply, although the theory instructor has the paramount responsibility of acquainting her students with major perspectives/concepts, the academic figures responsible for constructing them and the intellectual and social conditions under which they theorized, she needs a good deal of help. Adams and Sydie's Sociological Theory is one of those books that provide such prop-a good one for that. -- Alem Kebede * Teaching Sociology *
