Sociological Insight: An Introduction to Non-Obvious Sociology

ISBN-13: 9780195074420 / Angielski / Miękka / 1992 / 216 str.

Randall Collins

Opis

Revised and expanded to incorporate recent research, this classic text now offers a more comprehensive introduction to many of sociology's most interesting and elegant ideas, written with a grace and wit that have delighted a generation of students. Beginning with a central problem that distinguishes sociology from most other ways of looking at the world, Randall Collins examines the limits of human rationality and sociological theories of religion, showing how they open up a general theory of social rituals that holds the key to much of the rest of sociology. With these conceptual tools in hand, he invites students to ponder how sociological analysis can illuminate a variety of urgent topics--power, crime, sex, love, and the position of women in society--as it reveals both their visible social symbols and their paradoxical deep structures. In a new final chapter, Collins stakes out an important role for sociology in the information age, while coming full circle to the theories of rationality and ritual with which he began, showing that artificial intelligence can approximate human creativity only if it can take part in ritual interactions. Uniquely engaging, Sociological Insight dramatizes the major issues and concerns of sociology in a way that gets students thinking and talking, and whets their appetites for more.

Recenzje

`The text is as necessary as it is cleverly presented...it can help teachers of sociology convince their students that the world is a little more complicated (and therefore intellectually exciting) than their leaders have told them.' American Journal of Sociology

O autorze

Author of Three Sociological Traditions and Three Sociological Traditions: Selected Readings