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The Promise of Sociology

The Promise of Sociology

Classical Approaches to Contemporary Society, Second Edition

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Digital download
9781442634060
Published: August 2016

Digital download
9781442634077
Published: September 2016

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

Unlike most introductory texts that take a topical approach to studying sociology, this smart, challenging, and accessibly written text looks at the core principles of the discipline, making links to a contemporary context.

The second edition of this award-winning book has been substantially revised, making more direct connections between Generation Z, Mills’s concept of the sociological imagination, and the challenges students face in higher education today. The section on popular culture contains a new chapter on the history of popular music from early rock ’n’ roll to contemporary pop and R&B. New chapter objectives, end-of-chapter review and reflection questions, key terms, and glossary, as well as an instructor’s manual, make this text much more useful in the classroom.

Preface

Introduction

Part One: Why Think Sociologically?

1. Visions and Profiles of Students Today
2. Generation Z and the Promise of Sociology
3. The Light of Reason: Higher Education’s Challenges

Part Two: The Classical Tradition

4. Marx and the Dialectic of Dynamic, Unstable Social Formations
5. Marx, the Communist Manifesto, and Modernity
6. From Descartes to Durkheim: Toward a Science of Society
7. Durkheim and the Systematic Study of Social Facts
8. Weber and the Interpretive Understanding of Social Action
9. The Spirit of Capitalism, Modernity, and the Postmodern World

Part Three: Sociology and Contemporary Popular Culture

10. Culture and Critique
11. The Dialectics of Popular Culture
12. Rock ’n’ Roll as Complex Culture
13. The Promise of Sociology

Glossary of Key Terms and Names
Bibliography
Index

Rob Beamish is head of the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, where he has taught for 30 years. He is the author of Marx, Method, and the Division of Labor (1992); Fastest, Highest, Strongest: A Critique of High Performance Sport (2006, with Ian Ritchie), and Steroids: A New Look at Performance-Enhancing Drugs (2011).

Engaging, accessible, and written in a lively and often humorous style. Highly recommended.
~CHOICE

An introduction to the discipline and an exercise in critical thinking and learning.
~Teaching Sociology