Societies consider certain institutions and activities as central, proper, and visible, while others are defined as peripheral, deviant, and private. Vilhelm Aubert takes us to the -hidden- societies: the privacy of love, the secrecy of the underground, the remoteness of a ship, the isolation of the ill, the retirement from social life into sleep, and similar fascinating topics.

Vilhelm Aubert, a professor of sociology in the Law Faculty of Oslo University and a member of the board of directors of Oslo's famed Institute of Social Research, presents a theory of the hidden...