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"Classical sociological theory shapes the discipline of sociology, but also all of modern social thought. It influences politics, economics, and legal decisions. Preachers refer to it in sermons, journalists in newspaper columns. It shapes how both experts and ordinary people think about race, gender, sexuality, family, community, nationalism, military service, business corporations, social movements, and response to emergencies. It enables us to see connections among different events, institutions, and trends. It helps us to see general patterns in social life. And it helps us relate personal life to society. This is important at all scales from interpersonal relations like love or friendship to large-scale patterns in economy, government, or culture. Sociological theory helps us to see to what extent we can choose the conditions we live under. It helps us literally to judge what is possible and what is not, and what are the likely consequences of different courses of action. Sociological theory does not tell us what parties to vote for, what religion to profess - if any - or what moral values are right. But it does enable us to make systematic and informed judgments about what policies will promote our values and which will be likely to undermine them. It helps us to locate our personal experiences and shared projects in larger social and historical contexts. As C. Wright Mills put it: "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.""--

Society as a system of subsystems -- Manifest and latent functions : the Matthew effect -- An automated utopia : systems theory -- From functionalism to structuralism -- Constructivist structuralism : habitus -- The analysis of socially constructed reality -- Interactionism -- Dramaturgy -- Ethnomethodology -- The information society -- A new modernity -- Individuals as the basis of social actions -- The theory of communicative action -- The dialogic turn in the social sciences

Front Cover -- Title Page -- Half-Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1: The Enlightenment: Philosophical Foundations -- Chapter 2: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) -- Chapter 3: The Romantic-Conservative Reaction -- Chapter 4: Auguste Comte (1798-1857) -- Chapter 5: The Philosophical Orientations of Karl Marx (1818-1883) -- Chapter 6: Marx's Relation to Hegel and Feuerbach -- Chapter 7: Marx's Historical Sociology -- Chapter 8: Max Weber (1864-1920) -- Chapter 9: Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) -- Chapter 10: Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) -- Chapter 11: Robert Michels (1876-1936) -- Chapter 12: Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) -- Chapter 13: Karl Mannheim (1893-1947) -- Chapter 14: George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) -- Epilogue -- Index -- Back Cover.