Sociology Theory

In his groundbreaking and controversial book The DIM Hypothesis, Dr. Leonard Peikoff casts a penetrating new light on the process of human thought and thereby on Western culture and history. In this far-reaching study, Peikoff identifies the three methods people use to integrate concrete data into a whole, as when connecting diverse experiments by a scientific theory, separate laws into a constitution, or single events into a story.

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the US welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.

Finding evidence in new psychological research, the myth of Psyche and Cupid, Shakespeare’s plays, Freud’s case histories, Anne Frank’s diaries and contemporary novels, Carol Gilligan discovers that the roots of a more hopeful view of love are all around us.

Over the past 10 years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. Emerging smart cities have become both crucibles and showrooms for the practical application of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and the integration of big data into everyday life. Are smart cities optimized, sustainable, digitally networked solutions to urban problems? Or are they neoliberal, corporate-controlled, undemocratic non-places?

For fans of David Grann, Malcolm Gladwell, and Atul Gawande, Who Gets Believed? is a book as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, human psychology, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.

In a world increasingly ruled by numbers and algorithms, award-winning journalist Chris Jones makes a compelling case for a more personal approach to analytical thinking​. The Eye Test is a necessary course correction, a call for a more balanced, personal approach to problem-solving. Award-winning journalist Chris Jones makes the case for the human element - for what smart, practiced, devoted people can bring to situations that have proved resistant to analytics.

We don't understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today's political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe.

Cuteness has taken the planet by storm. Global sensations Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T. - all reflect its gathering power. But what does “cute” mean, as a sensibility and style? Why is it so pervasive? Is it all infantile fluff, or is there something more uncanny and even menacing going on - in a lighthearted way? In The Power of Cute, Simon May provides nuanced and surprising answers.

Martin A. Lee traces the dramatic social history of marijuana, from its origins to its emergence in the 1960s as a defining force in a culture war that has never ceased. Lee describes how the illicit marijuana subculture overcame government opposition and morphed into a dynamic, multibillion-dollar industry. Colorful, illuminating, and at times irreverent, this is a fascinating listen for recreational users and patients, students and doctors, musicians and accountants, Baby Boomers and their kids, and anyone who has ever wondered about the secret life of this ubiquitous herb.

Five mysterious billionaires summoned Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive The Event: the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Rushkoff came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley-style certainty that they can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making—as long as they have enough money and the right technology.

From one of the world’s leading data scientists, a landmark tour ofthe new science of idea flow, offering revolutionary insights into the mysteries of collective intelligence and social influence.

Un sincero y revelador análisis de las posibilidades energéticas de nuestro futuro. Así pues, este libro aborda temas tan importantes como la improbable y difícil tarea de descarbonizar el planeta, en parte por la estrecha relación entre la producción de alimentos y los combustibles fósiles, pero también destapa realidades incómodas, como la dependencia de las economías modernas respecto de la alta producción de amoníaco, metal, cemento y plástico.

From the French Revolution of the 18th century to the Mexican, Russian, German, Chinese, anticolonial, and Iranian revolutions of the 20th, Chirot finds that moderate solutions to serious social, economic, and political problems were overwhelmed by radical ideologies that promised simpler, drastic remedies. But not all revolutions had this outcome. The American Revolution didn't, although its failure to resolve the problem of slavery eventually led to the Civil War, and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was relatively peaceful, except in Yugoslavia.

Eamonn McCann’s account of what it is like to grow up a Catholic in a Northern Irish ghetto - first published in 1974 - quickly became a classic account of the feelings generated by British rule. The author was at the center of events in Derry which first brought Northern Ireland to world attention. He witnessed the gradual transformation of the civil rights movement from a mild campaign for “British Democracy” to an all-out military assault on the British state. This book describes the people involved in the war and gives an account of the springs of the "Catholic" opposition.

Lewis Mumford (1895 - 1990) is an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer.

Demography, literally the study of people, addresses the size, distribution, composition, and density of populations, and considers the impact the drivers which mediate these will have on both individual lives and the changing structure of human populations. This Very Short Introduction considers the way in which the global population has evolved over time and space. Sarah Harper discusses the theorists, theories, and methods involved in studying population trends and movements.

Our world order is under pressure as never before. From new authoritarian regimes in the US, Turkey and Russia to the imminent breakup of the European Union and a social media awash with intolerance, things look set to fall apart just as abruptly as the Soviet Union did some 30 years ago. How did we get here, and what do we do now? In this searching new exploration of our crisis, Paul Mason argues that at its heart lies an attack on the idea of humanity itself.

It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where two generations of Castro's enemies have raised armies to overthrow him, so far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island 90 miles to the south.

In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them stand out later in life.

Acclaimed scholar and sociologist Peter L. Berger carefully lays out an understanding of religion as a historical, societal mechanism in this classic work of social theory. Berger examines the roots of religious belief and its gradual dissolution in modern times, applying a general theoretical perspective to specific examples from religions throughout the ages. Building upon the author's previous work, The Social Construction of Reality, with Thomas Luckmann, this book makes Berger's case that human societies build a "sacred canopy" to protect, stabilize, and give meaning to their worldview.