Description
Lemert (sociology, Wesleyan U.) describes his frustrations and accommodations to a life in sociology, along with the moments in which he and his discipline are one while examining the history of trends within sociology from the middle of the nineteenth to the last quarter of the twentieth, ending with the years in which he claims sociology discovered its "complicated vocation." Along with his pithy observations on why sociologists tended to think what and when, he is particularly acute in describing why globalization came at a time when it could only make poverty and deprivation, which were already on the rise, worse for more people, and what sociologists can do about the situation and still be human beings. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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In fifteen years, Charles Lemert'sSocial Things has become a much-loved modern classic among teachers, students, and many other readers for introducing the sociological imagination through lively, memorable stories and interpretations. This fifth edition is fresh: the history of sociology section is updated to incorporate new discussions of the way sociological ideas have spread into numerous other fields to inform the new post-disciplinary social theory; the book now includes original yet practically vivid presentations of globalization, queer theory, critical race theory, and much else; and an entirely new chapter, "Global Things on a Fragile Planet," addresses the environmental crises that challenge our global world. Lemert focuses on man-made disasters like the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in 2010 and natural tragedies like the 2011 earthquakes and tsunami in Japan in which the fragility of organized human life and the sociological incompetence of many social structures are dramatically illustrated.
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