In fifteen years, Charles Lemert's Social 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.
Charles Lemert is university professor and John C. Andrus Professor of Social Theory Emeritus at Wesleyan University and senior fellow of the Center for Comparative Research at Yale University. He is the author or editor of many books, including Why Niebuhr Matters, The Structural Lie, Globalization: A Reader (edited with Anthony Elliott, Daniel Chafee, and Eric Hsu), and The New Individualism (with Anthony Elliott).
Table of Contents
Preface to the Fifth Edition IntroductionThe Sociological Life Chapter 1: Imagining Social Things, Competently Chapter 2: Personal Courage and Practical Sociologies Chapter 3: Practicing the Discipline of Social ThingsSociology Chapter 4: Sociology and Lost Worlds of A New World Order: 1848 - 1920 Chapter 5: Sociology Becomes a Science of Structures: 1920 - 1960 Chapter 6: Sociology Reaches Out Into the World: 1968 - 2000sSocial Things Chapter 7: The Mysterious Power of Social Structures Chapter 8: The Lively Subjects of Dead Structures Chapter 9: Well-Measured Lives in a World of DifferencesGlobal Things Chapter 10: Global Methods Chapter 11: Global Things on a Fragile Planet Chapter 12: Living against the ConclusionAcknowledgments Notes Index About the Author
What People are Saying About This
Joe Feagin
Charles Lemert makes sociology vital and alive in this provocative yet friendly introduction. Lemert uses personal biography and the life stories of sociologists, including female, gay and lesbian, and black social thinkers too often overlooked. He asks tough questions of race, class, and gender that most other introductions bypass.
Rhonda F. Levine
With its significantly updated chapter on the state of the discipline since the 1960s, Lemert's Social Things continues to be the best book about the discipline and practice of sociology since C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination.
Rebecca Overmyer-Velazquez
Social Things is indispensable for teaching sociology well, with all of its nuances and mind-bending complexities. Lemert meets students where they are and then demonstrates to them how deeply relevant is the discipline for any thoughtful understanding of their social worlds. This has certainly been true of the first 4 editions and, with the welcome addition of a new chapter on 'global things on a fragile planet' in the fifth edition, it will remain required reading for all of my students.
