Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics - Softcover

Ritzer, George

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9780072997590: Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0072997591 ISBN 13: 9780072997590

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education, 2006

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This text is the teaching solution for instructors who need a brief, accessible text for sociological theory. An affordable alternative to a standard text, this volume still includes a range of pedagogical features; it is concise yet comprehensive, informative, and engaging for a wide range of students.

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From the Publisher:

Classical theory is covered in this volume in two relatively brief chapters (2 and 3). Contemporary theory is dealt with in just five chapters (4-8). Postmodern theory is covered in one chapter (9).
The introductory chapter is brief, but it quickly and efficiently defines the nature of sociological theory, discusses some of the controversy surrounding the traditional definition of theory (and traditional theories), analyzes the alternate perspective and offers some non-traditional (multicultural) examples, and introduces the book as a whole.
Boxes on important concepts are throughout the text, brief biographical vignettes (with photos) appear throughout the book, and many examples are included.
There are no complex quotations from the theorists themselves. Extensive quotations have been paraphrased to make the material more accessible. There is no long list of citations. Instead, there is a very short annotated bibliography at the end of each chapter.
Feminist theory (by Patricia Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge) is discussed in several places in this text (rather than in one complex chapter): chapter eight, as well as in appropriate places in chapters four, six, seven and nine.
Other complex topics are covered in relatively brief discussions appearing in two, or more, chapters (e.g. Weber's and Simmel's work is dealt with in chapters 2 and 3).

About the Author:

George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, where he has been a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and won a Teaching Excellence award by the American Sociological Association, and in 2004, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by LaTrobe University, Melborune, Australia. He has served as Chair of the American Sociological Association's Sections on Theoretical Sociology and organizations and Occupations. He held the UNESCO Chair in Social Theory at the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Fulbright-Hay Chair at York University in Canada, and a Fulbright-Hays award to the Netherlands. He has been Scholar-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences. Dr. Ritzer's main theoretical interests lie in metatheory as well as applied social theory. In metatheory, his contributions include Metatheorizing in Sociology(Lexington Books, 1991), Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science (Allyn and Bacon, 1975, 1980), and Toward an Integrated Sociological Paradigm (Allyn and Bacon). Professor Ritzer is perhaps best known for the McDonaldization of Society (4/e, 2004); translated into more than a dozen languages) and several related books (also with a number of translations, including Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society (1995), Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption (2/e, 2005),The Globalization of Nothing (2/e, 2007), and (with Craig Lair) Outsourcing: Globalization and Beyond. He edited the Encyclopedia of Social Theory (2005), and is the founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture. He just completed editing the eleven-volume Encyclopedia of Sociology (2007) and The Blackwell Companion to Globalization (2007). In 2006, McGraw-Hill published the second edition of Professor Ritzer's Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classic Roots: The Basics. In 2007, McGraw-Hill will publish the seventh edition of Modern Sociological Theory, and the fifth edition of Classical Sociological Theory. The latter texts, as well as this one, have been translated into a number of languages.

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