"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
Pine Forge Press Web Site, March, 2002
Summary
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART ONE: THE EUROPEAN ROOTS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
The Origins of Sociological Theory Saint-Simon, Comte and Martineau
Theorizing after the French Revolution
PART TWO: CONSERVATIVE THEORIES Spencer and Sumner
Evolutionism and Functionalism Durkheim
Social Realism and Functionalism Extended
PART THREE: RADICAL THEORY Marx and Engels
Radical Anti-Capitalism Lenin and Luxemburg
Marxism Extended
PART FOUR: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF COMPLEXITY AND FORM Max Weber and Marianne Weber
Social Action and Societal Complexity Simmel
The Sociology of Form and Content
PART FIVE: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF POLITICS AND ECONOMICS Pareto and Michels
Political Sociological Theories Veblen and Schumpeter
Economic Sociological Theories
PART SIX: OTHER VOICES IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIZING Gilman and Webb
Society and Gender Du Bois
Sociological Theory and Race Cooley, Mead and Freud
Society, Self and Mind
PART SEVEN: TWENTIETH-CENTURY FUNCTIONALISM AND BEYOND Parsons and Merton
Twentieth-Century Functionalism Luhmann and Giddens
Systems, Structuration and Modernity
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 Blumer, Goffman and Hochschild
Symbolic Interactionism Coleman
Rational Choice and Exchange Smith and Collins
Feminist Sociological Theory
Knowledge, Truth and Power
Foucault's Discourse and the Feminist Response
Final Thoughts on Sociological Theorizing
