Perspectives in Sociology

by N/A

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $6.60

  This is the third edition of a text that has proved to be highly successful and popular with a wide range of students. The authors provide a critical introduction to sociology, and to the ways in which sociologists are trained to think and work. The subject is presented as a sequence of different perspectives on the social world, all of them interrelated, sometimes in conflict with one another, and all contributing important and necessary insights. The discussion is backed up by extensive reference to empirical studies. This edition has been revised with a new chapter on critical theory and considerable rewriting throughout, to ensure continued clarity and to respond to the comments of users of the previous edition.

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  From its first edition in 1979, Perspectives in Sociology has provided generations of undergraduates with a clear, reassuring introduction to the complications of sociological theory. This revised and updated edition features:

  • a concise introduction to the major debates of the twentieth century, placing them in historical and philosophical context
  • information on thinkers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century whose relevance to modern social thought is only now being recognized, e.g. Nietszche, Saussure, Simmel
  • connections drawn between post-structuralist thinkers like Foucault and Derrida and the founding figures of sociology: Marx, Weber and Durkheim
  • a completely rewritten chapter on the `Synthesisers' - Bourdieu, Habermas and Giddens - and their attempts to generate a consensus from the apparently conflicting theories of their predecessors
  • a new chapter reviewing the rise of British sociology, with particular reference to the political context and the changing role of `class' in sociological thinking
  • a new chapter describing the attempts of sociological theorists to explain current concerns, problems, and issues in the areas of gender, (homo)sexuality, and ethnicity in the context of the postcolonial world.

  While retaining its emphasis and wealth of information on the founding figures of sociology, this fifth edition now features a new easy-to-read format, (with particular attention paid to the linking and cross-referencing of chapters), and includes much new material on contemporary social theory with particular reference to its attempts to tackle current problems and issues in the areas of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in the postcolonial context.