Sociological Theory in the Classical Era: Text and Readings

by Laura Desfor Edles, Scott Appelrouth

Sociological Theory in the Classical Era is a highly-acclaimed new text which utilizes the unique and increasingly popular text/reader approach. The book presents major readings by sociology′s key classical theorists, including Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, Georg Simmel, W.E.B. Du Bois, and George Herbert Mead. The corresponding text written by Laura Desfor Edles and Scott Appelrouth gives students the analytical framework necessary for them to develop a more critical and gratifying understanding of the ideas advanced by these theorists.
 

Genres: Sociology, School, Read For School, Textbooks

416 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2004

Reviews

[Pierre-Olivier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I taught Classical Sociological Theory across the Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 semesters using both the third and fourth editions of this book. It's a fine textbook, but like many textbooks it doesn't include most, if not all, of the original citations within each theorist's own work, which can be a problem for students who are trying to figure out or understand where the theorist's got their ideas and/or data from. Aside from that the book is well organized, the introductory chapters to each theorist AND each reading are insightful and helpful, and overall this was a great tool throughout the year. If you're looking for a classical theory textbook, you could do worse than this. Recommended.

[Gyan Grih]

This title introduces students to original major writings from sociology's key classical theorists. It also provides a thorough framework for understanding these challenging readings. For each theorist, the authors give a biographical sketch, discuss intellectual influences and core ideas, and offer contemporary examples and applications of those ideas. Introductions to every reading provide additional background on their structure and significance. This book also makes frequent use of photos, diagrams, tables, and charts to help illustrate important concepts.

[Mandy]

This is the book I will mostly likely be reading on a regular basis. It is not by choice. Oh fun times in Sociology 101.

[Maggie McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Individuals do not chart their paths on roads not yet built.”

“If in the hey-dey of the greatest of the world’s civilizations, it is possible for one people ruthlessly to steal another, drag them helpless across the water, enslave them, debauch them, and then slowly murder them by economic and social exclusion until they disappear from the face of the earth — if the consummation of such a crime be possible in the twentieth century, then our civilization is vain and the republic is a mockery and a farce.” — W.E.B. Du Bois

“The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty.” — Émile Durkheim

“It is everlastingly repeated that it is man’s nature to be eternally dissatisfied, constantly to advance, without relief or rest, toward an indefinite goal.” — Émile Durkheim

“We may offer society everything social in us, and still be unable to control our desires.” — Émile Durkheim

“Poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself. … the less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely. … Wealth, on the other hand, by the power it bestows, deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only.” — Émile Durkheim

“Asceticism looked upon the pursuit of wealth as an end in itself as highly reprehensible; but the attainment of it as a fruit of labor in a calling was a sign of God’s blessing.” — Max Weber

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. … It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.” — Karl Marx

“Underlying flirtation is the duality between the giving up of oneself — behind which lies the threat of refusal or withdrawal — and an unwillingness to surrender oneself to another, which otherwise could lead to submission. The art of flirtation lies in playing ‘hinted consent and hinted denial against each other to draw the man on without letting matters come to a decision, to rebuff him without making him lose all hope.’” — Georg Simmel

“Women have proven themselves adept at shifting and remaking and sometimes contorting themselves to fit the times, and that very flexibility and responsiveness has come to define success in our era.” — Hanna Rosin

“But, thank Heaven, side by side with the cold, mathematical, selfishly calculating, so-called practical and unsentimental instinct of the business man, there comes the sympathetic warmth and sunshine of good women, like the sweet and sweetening breezes of spring, cleansing, purifying, soothing, inspiring, lifting the drunkard from the gutter, the outcast from the pit.” — Anna Julia Cooper

“All religions counter an otherwise senseless world with the conviction that the world is not a playground for chance; instead, it is ruled by reasons and fates that can be known.”

“Reality is a product of our conceptual categories that make up our consciousness and thus has no existence independent of our own construction of it.”

“Because each interlocutor’s challenge causes his adversary to refine his argument, the result is a gradual, progressive sophistication of views.”

[Urban Stillwater · Rating 1 out of 5]

They completly misunderstood the works of Pierre Bourdieau and Michel Foucault. Their definitions of postmodernism does not work. They did not cath the essence and the spirit of the thinking of Karl Marx.

[JVO · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mean it’s sociological theory it’s not supposed to be fun.

[Gale · Rating 5 out of 5]

A required textbook for a college course but well worth the read. A great insight to these theorists.