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Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach
This comprehensive text shares the excitement of sociology with the acclaimed 'down-to-earth' approach that highlights the sociology of everyday life. The 9th edition retains all the features that have made previous editions so successful.
677 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 26, 2012
I’ve been reading quite a bit of sociology lately and so I thought it might be a good idea to read a general textbook to get an overview of the subject itself. This was interesting, though very American, obviously. And that had both benefits and disadvantages. Much of the sociology I’ve been reading has been European – so it was interesting to see a US perspective on the subject. All the same, this is such a general introduction that besides the occasional statistic there wasn’t all that much that I felt I learnt from it.
The best chapter is five – where he explains various sociological research methods and the limitations and difficulties of each. The best part of this chapter is the summary at the end, perhaps as good a summary of these methods in a few pages as I’ve found to date.
The chapter I found least useful was the chapter on religion. I guess it is important to remember that the US is an extremely religious nation and quite unusual as such for an advanced industrial society. I think this might have coloured a lot of this section and made the conclusions much more rosy than might have been the case if written in another country. I had no idea that quite such a large percentage of people went to church in America every week. All the same, I would have liked to have had more discussion on European countries which are far less religious and yet do not seem to have fallen into despair. There are many things stated here that I believe might well be true, for example, that religious people tend to be happier than non-religious ones, although, to be honest I’ve never checked the data on this and it could be a kind of survey effect. There are also things stated that are clearly false, such as that prayer has been proven to be efficacious in curing illnesses. It always seems a little pointless to me to have people tell me that overall religious people are happier than non-religious people. Where is this overall happy religious person? And what am I to do with this information? Start believing in God? I can assure you that being forced to pretend to believe would make me anything but happy. Besides which, it would be hard to imagine that the African Americans who were told to take out shonky loans by pastors of their local church who proved to be on commission from sub-prime lenders, because Jesus wanted them to be home owners are all that happy now.
This book is organised according to themes: religion, the economy, class, gender and so on. While this is as good a way to organise such a book as any, I think I would have gotten more out of a more in depth look at sociologists themselves and their theories. This is done for Weber’s views on capitalism and Protestantism – something the author finds interesting enough to explain to his readers three times. It is also done with Marx and his alienation theory of labour (described at least twice) and there is also some mention of Durkheim on suicide and Morgan on social development – but I think I would have preferred much more of this.
It seems somewhat surprising to me that one could write an entire book on sociology and never mention Bourdieu, Foucault or any of the post-structuralists. Oh well, I guess the book is ‘down to earth’.
The best chapter is five – where he explains various sociological research methods and the limitations and difficulties of each. The best part of this chapter is the summary at the end, perhaps as good a summary of these methods in a few pages as I’ve found to date.
The chapter I found least useful was the chapter on religion. I guess it is important to remember that the US is an extremely religious nation and quite unusual as such for an advanced industrial society. I think this might have coloured a lot of this section and made the conclusions much more rosy than might have been the case if written in another country. I had no idea that quite such a large percentage of people went to church in America every week. All the same, I would have liked to have had more discussion on European countries which are far less religious and yet do not seem to have fallen into despair. There are many things stated here that I believe might well be true, for example, that religious people tend to be happier than non-religious ones, although, to be honest I’ve never checked the data on this and it could be a kind of survey effect. There are also things stated that are clearly false, such as that prayer has been proven to be efficacious in curing illnesses. It always seems a little pointless to me to have people tell me that overall religious people are happier than non-religious people. Where is this overall happy religious person? And what am I to do with this information? Start believing in God? I can assure you that being forced to pretend to believe would make me anything but happy. Besides which, it would be hard to imagine that the African Americans who were told to take out shonky loans by pastors of their local church who proved to be on commission from sub-prime lenders, because Jesus wanted them to be home owners are all that happy now.
This book is organised according to themes: religion, the economy, class, gender and so on. While this is as good a way to organise such a book as any, I think I would have gotten more out of a more in depth look at sociologists themselves and their theories. This is done for Weber’s views on capitalism and Protestantism – something the author finds interesting enough to explain to his readers three times. It is also done with Marx and his alienation theory of labour (described at least twice) and there is also some mention of Durkheim on suicide and Morgan on social development – but I think I would have preferred much more of this.
It seems somewhat surprising to me that one could write an entire book on sociology and never mention Bourdieu, Foucault or any of the post-structuralists. Oh well, I guess the book is ‘down to earth’.
November 30, 2017
Read this as a prerequisite for my nursing degree. I had taken Sociology long ago and didn’t do so well in it so I decided to give it another try. The author of this textbook did a very good job putting this together. I really actually enjoyed this class.
April 5, 2018
I really enjoyed this book. Sociology is a subject I wish to study in the future and this was a great and appetizing introduction.
October 11, 2014
I don't know if textbooks are more opinionated now than they were when I was young or that I am just mature enough now to notice it. Either way, this textbook really pushed the author's personal opinion on numerous topics such as marriage, religion and the environment. I guess I view my textbooks like I view my news...it should just state known facts without any other input. Hope the rest of my sociology texts are much better.
April 25, 2013
This is an excellent textbook for an introduction to sociology class. James Henslin is well-traveled and includes many of his own photos from his journeys around the world.
January 23, 2022
For a textbook and subject that claims to be about the sociological perspective--the intersection of culture, history, personal biography, social location--the author was rather lacking in doing so for non-"Western" concepts or social movements he didn't agree with, and displayed both significant bias (the ableism in regards to whether neurodivergent people actually existed was fun) and an appalling lack of socioeconomic knowledge (my favorite example of this was his constant use of communism and socialism as interchangeable concepts). 2/5 stars, its primary usefulness is teaching basic sociological vocabulary; the sex/gender unit alone could use some major updates.
Edit: the top two novels that "readers also enjoyed" both being by Ben Shapiro speaks volumes both to Henslin's target audience and the level of factuality/cultural diversity that they enjoy.
Edit: the top two novels that "readers also enjoyed" both being by Ben Shapiro speaks volumes both to Henslin's target audience and the level of factuality/cultural diversity that they enjoy.
August 17, 2017
The examples are lackluster and don't give much depth to the concepts, there isn't much correlation between chapters and the information that is covered seems a bit watered down compared to the contents of other sociology books I've seen and read. The author also had a haughty and condescending tone which made his already unbearable book nearly intolerable. Definitely supplement with other books if this is the solo required resource for a class.
July 24, 2019
Quite a good introductory textbook. Henslin uses interesting stories to illustrate sociological concepts in a way that encourages critical thinking. The book does adhere to a slightly older view of sociology. Henslin admits that the ecological crisis facing humanity is maybe the most threatening problem we are facing, yet despite this gives environmental sociology about 1/3 of the final chapter. Overall though this is a great way to get familiar with sociology from its roots to the present day.
January 29, 2021
If you want a book that will give you the bare bones of sociology, this is the book. Learn about values, mores, norms. Groups, stratification, and globalism. It is a terrific book with real-world examples about how we see one another and how each of us impacts the lives of everyone we interact with.
July 30, 2017
Personal anecdotes flesh out basic and complex ideas. Sociological imagination or perspective gained with hard work and practice. This textbook led me to Charles Wright Mills.
November 23, 2019
Very interesting, and we'll written. I read this for a sociology college course and enjoyed reading it.
March 13, 2023
Never took Sociology in College, enjoyed this immensely
actually the Audiobook
actually the Audiobook
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2025
read for school soc 101
May 30, 2015
This book had some interesting insight. I learned a lot and was surprised to find topics that actually applied to my life and interested me. I never thought sociology would be something that interested me. It also left me questioning our society. I've always known we were screwed up, but if people KNOW this and study it, I don't understand why no one is doing anything to change it. I also question some of sociologist's methods of study. I mean, how do you justify kicking someone to hospitalization and paticipating in a shoot out? If you know it's going to go down, why let it happen? To study it? That's just wrong. But other than that, it was a good read. People should read it to get a dose of reality, especially when it comes to judgeing the poor. What it said in that regard and in the prison system is very true.
March 29, 2014
This is an excellent read for anyone who is interested in Sociology. Henslin does an good job writing in layman's terms. I used this book for reading assignments for the semester, but I wouldn't have mind reading it on its own as well. It's easy to read, easy to understand, and yet, very thorough.
May 16, 2014
Great introduction to societal issues!
August 2, 2014
A very decent introductory text for sociology. It managed to keep me entertained while sharing a lot of valuable information.
May 4, 2015
Not bad for text book
August 27, 2016
Read this entire textbook for a sociology class. Very good information source for social problems research.
December 20, 2015
Great overview of sociological issues. Thorough and a fantastic resource with minimal -- however present -- personal slant/commentary. Worth reading and referencing.
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November 21, 2009None
November 2, 2012
Brilliant.
February 7, 2014
Thorough and complete but dry if this is not your passion.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews