The sociology book /

Profiles the world's most renowned sociologists and more than 100 of their biggest ideas, including issues of equality, diversity, identity, and human rights; the effects of globalization; the role of institutions; and the rise of urban living in modern society.

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Bibliographic Details
Group Author: Thorpe, Christopher; Yuill, Chris; Hobbs, Mitchell; Todd, Megan; Tomley, Sarah; Weeks, Marcus.
Published: DK Publishing,
Publisher Address: New York, New York :
Publication Dates: 2015.
©2015
Literature type: Book
Language: English
Edition: First American edition.
Series: Big ideas simply explained
Subjects:
Summary: Profiles the world's most renowned sociologists and more than 100 of their biggest ideas, including issues of equality, diversity, identity, and human rights; the effects of globalization; the role of institutions; and the rise of urban living in modern society.
Item Description: Includes index.
Carrier Form: 352 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 9781465436504
1465436502
Index Number: HM585
CLC: C91
Call Number: C91/S678-39
Contents: Foundations of sociology :
A physical defeat has never marked the end of a nation /
Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarreled, in troops and companies /
Science can be used to build a better world /
The Declaration of Independence bears no relation to half the human race /
The fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable /
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft /
Society, like the human body, has interrelated parts, needs, and functions /
The iron cage of rationality /
Many personal troubles must be understood in terms of public issues /
Pay to the most commonplace activities the attention accorded extraordinary events /
Where there is power there is resistance /
Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original /
Social inequalities : I broadly accuse the bourgeoisie of social murder /
The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line /
The poor are excluded from the ordinary living patterns, customs, and activities of life /
There ain't no black in the Union Jack /
A sense of one's place /
The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined /
The ghetto is where the black people live /
The tools of freedom become the sources of indignity /
Men's interest in patriarchy is condensed in hegemonic masculinity /
White women have been complicit in this imperialist, white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy /
The concept of "patriarch" is indispensable for an analysis of gender inequality /
Modern living :
Strangers are not really conceived as individuals, but as strangers of a particular type /
The freedom to remake our cities and ourselves /
There must be eyes on the street /
Only communication can communicate /
Society should articulate what is good /
McDonaldization affects virtually every aspect of society /
The bonds of our communities have withered /
Disneyization replaces mundane blandness with spectacular experiences /
Living in a loft is like living in a showcase /
Living in a global world :
Abandon all hope of totality, you who enter the world of fluid modernity /
The modern world-system /
Global issues, local perspective /
Climate change is a back-of-the-mind issue /
No social justice without global cognitive justice /
The unleashing of productive capacity by the power of the mind /
We are living in a world that is beyond controllability /
It sometimes seems as if the whole world is on the move /
Nations can be imagined and constructed with relatively little historical straw /
Global cities are strategic sites for new types of operations /
Different societies appropriate the materials of modernity differently /
Processes of change have altered the relations between peoples and communities /
Culture and identity :
The "I" and the "me" /
The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned /
The civilizing process is constantly moving "forward" /
Mass culture reinforces political repression /
The danger of the future is that men may become robots /
Culture is ordinary /
Stigma refers to an attribute that is deeply discrediting /
We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning /
Modern identities are being decentered /
All communities are imagined /
Throughout the world, culture has been doggedly pushing itself center stage /
Work and consumerism :
Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure /
The Puritan wanted to work in a calling: we are forced to do so /
Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination /
The more sophisticated machines become, the less skill the worker has /
Automation increases the worker's control over his work process /
The Romantic ethic promotes the spirit of consumerism /
In processing people, the product is a state of mind /
Spontaneous consent combines with coercion /
Things make us just as much as we make things /
Feminization has had only a modest impact on reducing gender inequalities /
The role of institutions :
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature /
The iron law of oligarchy /
Healthy people need no bureaucracy to mate, give birth, and die /
Some commit crimes because they are responding to a social situation /
Total institutions strip people of their support systems and their sense of self /
Government is the right disposition of things /
Religion has lost its plausibility and social significance /
Our identity and behavior are determined by how we are described and classified /
Economic crisis is immediately transformed into social crisis /
Schooling has been at once something done to the poor and for the poor /
Societies are subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic /
The time of the tribes /
How working-class kids get working-class jobs /
Families and intimacies :
Differences between the sexes are cultural creations /
Families are factories that produce human personalities /
Western man has become a confessing animal /
Heterosexuality must be recognized and studied as an institution /
Western family arrangements are diverse, fluid, and unresolved /
The marriage contract is a work contract /
Housework is directly opposed to self-actualization /
When love finally wins it has to face all kinds of defeat /
Sexuality is as much about beliefs and ideologies as about the physical body /
Queer theory questions the very grounds of identity /