David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless. Down on Their Luck sketches a portrait of men and women who are highly adaptive, resourceful, and pragmatic. Their survival is a tale of...

Exploring locales such as city streets, bus stops, parking lots, bars, retail establishments, and discussion groups, Together Alone ventures into what is often thought of as the realm of passing strangers to examine the nature of personal relationships conducted in public spaces. While most studies of social interaction have gone behind closed doors to focus on relationships in the family, school, and workplace, this innovative collection pushes the boundaries of the field by analyzing both fleeting and anchored relationships in the seldom-studied communal areas where much of...

Bobby Burns arrived in Tucson, Arizona, with a few dollars in his pocket and no place to live. Without family, without a job, he had nowhere to go but a homeless shelter. How did a college graduate find himself so close to life on the streets? In a voice that is startling for its simplicity and utter honesty, Burns tells the story of how he slipped into homelessness, how he learned what it means to live in a place where nobody will notice if you disappear, and how he emerged to tell his story. Bobby's diary of 41 days without a home brings readers into the world of a homeless shelter....

Award-winning sociologists David Snow and Sarah Soule draw from a broad range of theories including political sociology, theories of organizations, and the study of culture and social interaction to introduce the essential ideas for analyzing social movements.