A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.

1. Theories of Capital: The Historical Foundation. 3. 2. Social Capital: Capital Captured through Social Relations. 19. 3. Resources, Hierarchy, Networks, and Homophily: The Structural Foundation. 29. 4. Resources, Motivations, and Interactions: The Action Foundation. 41. 5. The Theory and Theoretical Propositions. 55. 6. Social Capital and Status Attainment: A Research Tradition. 78. 7. Inequality in Social Capital: A Research Agenda. 99. 8. Social Capital and the Emergence of Social Structure: A Theory of Rational Choice. 127. 9. Reputation and Social Capital: The Rational Basis for Social Exchange. 143. 10. Social Capital in Hierarchical Structures. 165. 11. Institutions, Networks, and Capital Building: Societal Transformations. 184. 12. Cybernetworks and the Global Village: The Rise of Social Capital. 210. 13. The Future of the Theory. 243. . References. 251. . Index. 267.

Social Structures is a book that examines how structural forms spontaneously arise from social relationships. Offering major insights into the building blocks of social life, it identifies which locally emergent structures have the capacity to grow into larger ones and shows how structural tendencies associated with smaller structures shape and constrain patterns of larger structures. The book then investigates the role such structures have played in the emergence of the modern nation-state. Bringing together the latest findings in sociology, anthropology, political science, and history, John Levi Martin traces how sets of interpersonal relationships become ordered in different ways to form structures. He looks at a range of social structures, from smaller ones like families and street gangs to larger ones such as communes and, ultimately, nation-states. He finds that the relationships best suited to forming larger structures are those that thrive in conditions of inequality; that are incomplete and as sparse as possible, and thereby avoid the problem of completion in which interacting members are required to establish too many relationships; and that abhor transitivity rather than assuming it. Social Structures argues that these "patronage" relationships, which often serve as means of loose coordination in the absence of strong states, are nevertheless the scaffolding of the social structures most distinctive to the modern state, namely the command army and the political party.