The chapters in this volume represent some of Dennis Wrong's best and most enduring essays. Initially published as Skeptical Sociology, this collection displays his ability to write compellingly for general intellectual audiences as well as for academic sociologists. The book is divided into sections that represent Wrong's major areas of interest and investigation: "Human Nature and the Perspective of Sociology," "Social Stratification and Inequality," and "Power and Politics." Each section is preceded by a short introduction that places the articles in context and elaborates and often sheds new light on the contents. The essays in the first section were written with polemical intent, directed against the assumptions of academic sociology that prevailed in an earlier period. Part two calls attention to the neglect by functionalists of power, group conflict, and historical change; Wrong shows that failure to consider them made functional theories of stratification especially vulnerable. The third section is more heterogeneous in subject and theme than the others; all the essays in it touch in some way on power or politics. Included in this volume is Wrong's celebrated and much-quoted article "The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology." Other significant essays reveal the author's views on many timely topics of sociological concern, such as the quests for "community" and for "identity"; the Freudian, Marxian, and Weberian heritages in sociology; social class in America; meritocracy; a theory of democratic politics; humanist, positivist, and functionalist perspectives; and the sociology of the future. The Oversocialized Conception of Man is an indispensable volume for sociologists, political theorists, and historians. Dennis H. Wrong is emeritus professor of sociology at New York University. He is the author of The Problem of Order, Population and Society, Class Fertility Trends in Western Nations, Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses (also published by Transaction), and The Modern Condition (forthcoming).

At the end of the twentieth century, many fear that the bonds holding civil society together have come undone. Yet, as the noted scholar Dennis Wrong shows us, our generation is not alone in fearing a breakdown of social ties and a descent into violent conflict.

This work provides a crystallization and particularization of a school of sociological thinking variously called "creative sociology," "existential sociology," "phenomenological sociology," "conflict theory," and "dramaturgical analysis." The result is a methodological synthesis of the "dual" visions of Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel. This book equips the reader with a framework for providing adequate descriptions of those face-to-face encounters that make up everyday life. This edition includes essays not found in the first edition, as well as a new introduction that locates it in the spectrum of contemporary theorizing.

For many years now, Professor Aron's course of lectures at the Sorbonne on "Les Grandes doctrines de l'histoire sociologique" has been a mecca for students from the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. These lectures now serve as the basis for this major work--to be completed in succeeding volumes--on the history of man's understanding of his social order"--Book jacket.

The change from a student role to a teacher role can be one of the most abrupt and stressful transitions in working life but the process of socialization does not end when the student becomes a fully qualified teacher, as many writers, laymen and sociologists, would have us believe. Colin Lacey argues that socialization is a partial and rarely homogenous process. He illustrates this from a wide variety of interesting case material to show how student teachers adapt their responses to the classroom situation.

This is a book for anyone who wants to know what sociology is and what sociologists do. In a subject which has changed dramatically over the last twenty years, Sociology: The Basics offers the most up-to-date guide to the major topics and areas of debate. It covers among other things: sociology and society; laws, morality and science; social relations; power and communication; society in the future becoming a sociologist. Clearly written, concise and comprehensive, Sociology: The Basics is an essential introductory handbook.