Modern Sociology

Power, Belief, and Society: Understanding the Enduring Ideas of Max Weber offers an in-depth exploration of one of the most influential thinkers in sociology, politics, and economics. Max Weber’s work continues to shape how we understand authority, religion, bureaucracy, and the rational structures of the modern world. This book brings Weber’s complex ideas to life in clear, accessible language, connecting his theories to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Inside, readers will discover Weber’s analysis of the Protestant ethic and its connection to capitalism, his famous ...

Unity and Order: Exploring Émile Durkheim’s Ideas of Social Cohesion and Functionalism takes readers inside the mind of one of sociology’s most influential thinkers. Émile Durkheim asked one of the most fundamental questions of social life: What holds societies together? His answers shaped the discipline of sociology and continue to resonate in today’s rapidly changing world. This engaging and accessible book traces Durkheim’s groundbreaking theories of solidarity, the collective conscience, anomie, and functionalism. It explains how cohesion shifts from mechanical solidarity in ...

In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.

This book provides basic information about sociology and is an excellent resource for beginners or those seeking general knowledge about the subject matter. It is divided into three parts. Part one introduces the concept of sociology, explores micro-sociologist and macro-sociologist types, and explains the differences between quantitative and qualitative methodologies used in research. Part two focuses on specific areas of interest for sociological research including cults, family, religion, education, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, health, gangs, crime, and immigration. Part three ...

A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then - diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions - continue to confront us today.  

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the twenty-first century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive answers to these questions.

The Evolution of Work and Leisure: How Labor, Rest, and Purpose Have Changed Across Economic Eras explores one of the most fundamental questions of human life: why we work, why we rest, and how those meanings have shifted across history. From early survival based societies to agricultural civilizations, from medieval craftsmanship to factory labor, and from modern careers to burnout and uncertainty, this book traces how economic systems shape daily life, identity, and values. Work and leisure are not fixed realities. They are human inventions that change alongside culture, technology, and ...

Slavoj Žižek's first book is a provocative and original work looking at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. In a thrilling tour de force that made his name, he explores the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society.

Lynch mobs, chain gangs, and popular views of black Southern criminals that defined the Jim Crow South are well known. We know less about the role of the urban North in shaping views of race and crime in American society. Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.

Peasants dismantles enduring myths about this forgotten class as archaic or backward, revealing instead a fiercely adaptive and politically indispensable majority whose fate is inseparable from our own. Travelling from Indian sugar fields to the rice landscapes of Cambodia, the coca valleys of Peru to Ghana's cocoa belt, Maryam Aslany explores contemporary peasant worlds to uncover the exploitative systems that power global markets – and the human lives at their core.

Adulthood used to come with clearer signposts. You could tell—at least roughly—what counted as progress, and what “being grown-up” looked like. Now the milestones arrive later, in a different order, under tighter constraints, and with a greater risk of reversal. Many people do the adult work—earning, caring, coping—yet still feel provisional. Adulthood Without a Script explains what changed, and why the loss of a shared sequence makes everyday life more judgement-heavy. Drawing on research from psychology, sociology, public health, and work-and-family studies, it shows how ...

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens—every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna. Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of an extraordinary story of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

In this eye-opening study, Sidney W. Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar and reveals how closely interwoven sugar's origins are as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies, with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat.

Why has there been such an explosion of discussion about sex in the West since the 17th century? Here, one of France's greatest intellectuals explores the evolving social, economic, and political forces that have shaped our attitudes toward sex. In a book that is at once controversial and seductive, Michel Foucault describes how we are in the process of making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire, rather than the increase of pleasure.

The Rationalized World: Understanding Sociology’s Key to Modern Order and Control offers a clear and engaging exploration of one of sociology’s most influential concepts: rationalization. From Max Weber’s groundbreaking theories to the rise of bureaucracies, the transformation of economies, the shaping of law and governance, and the spread of rationalized systems through globalization, this book provides a comprehensive look at how rationalization has defined the modern world. Written in an accessible yet thought-provoking style, this book examines how rationalization affects ...

There is no more universal truth in life than death. No matter who you are, it is certain that one day you will die, but the mechanics and understanding of that experience will differ greatly in today's modern age. Dr. Haider Warraich is a young and brilliant new voice in the conversation about death and dying started by Dr. Sherwin Nuland and Atul Gawande. Dr. Warraich takes a broader look at how we die today, from the cellular level up to the very definition of death itself.

Exploring more than 80 of the big ideas and key theories in the field of sociology in a clear and simple way, narrated by Laurel Lefkow. This is the perfect introduction to the study of how humans live and interact with each other. Covering diversity and equality, globalization, human rights...

In the widening grey zone between life and death, doctors fight with doctors, families feel pressured to make tough decisions about their loved ones and lawyers are left to argue life-and-death cases in the courts. Meanwhile, intensive care patients are caught in purgatory, attached to machines and unable to speak for themselves. In Death Interrupted, Dr Blair Bigham seeks to help listeners understand the options facing them at the end of their lives.

Have you ever wanted to meet the heroes of the Bible? This book will give you the opportunity to interact with many of the Biblical characters - to ask them what they're thinking and feeling, and why they behave the way they do. You'll also meet God, ancient man's imagined version of the prototypical forefather. You probably have a lot of questions for him about his behavior; this time, for a change, he'll answer. The heroes of the Bible spoke their own language. They never said, “In my opinion,” or “I don’t know,” or “That’s interesting.” They never asked themselves why ...

In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’ ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’ work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative Black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible.