Sociology Theory

It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly - to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.”

Dr. Peter H. Kim, the world’s leading expert in the rapidly growing field of trust repair, has conducted over two decades of groundbreaking research to answer that question. In How Trust Works, he draws on this research and the work of other social scientists to reveal the surprising truths about how relationships are built, how they are broken, and how they are repaired. Dr. Kim’s work shows how we are often more trusting than we think and how easily our trust in others can be distorted.

In the wake of the Obama presidency, a group of young charismatic conservatives catapulted onto the American political and cultural scenes, eager to thwart nationwide pushes for greater equity and inclusion. They dreamed of a cultural revolution—online and off—that would offer a forceful alternative to the progressive politics that were dominating American college campuses.

The Marvel of Martyrdom takes a broad perspective on self-sacrifice and martyrdom, bringing together religion, popular culture, history, psychology, and mythology. Stories of individuals both famous (Gandhi) and obscure (Rodrigo Rosenberg) intertwine with research on altruism, happiness, and radicalization to terrorism. The changing landscape of the book's setting - from The Roman Empire to 19th-century Russia to Nazi Germany to post-World War II India to present day Ukraine - makes the power of self-sacrifice and martyrdom come alive.

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.

Finding evidence in new psychological research, the myth of Psyche and Cupid, Shakespeare’s plays, Freud’s case histories, Anne Frank’s diaries and contemporary novels, Carol Gilligan discovers that the roots of a more hopeful view of love are all around us.

Engine 40, Ladder 35 was one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse, located on the West Side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center; 12 of the men would never return. The story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day, it is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

From political speeches to TikTok trends, from courtroom dramas to the carefully curated campaigns of global brands, Truth & Persuasion unpacks how influence is crafted, consumed, and contested in today’s world. This is a book for anyone who’s ever wondered why some ideas stick, why certain voices dominate, or how we can cut through the noise to find clarity in an age of viral content and endless opinions.

In Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs identifies two distinct moral syndromes—one governing commerce, the other politics—and explores what happens when these two syndromes collide. She looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, government’s overextended subsidies to agriculture, and transit police who abuse the system the are supposed to enforce, and asks us to consider instances in which snobbery is a virtue and industry a vice.

Boomers are narcissists. Millennials are spoiled. Gen Zers are lazy. We assume people born around the same time have basically the same values. It makes for good headlines, but is it true? Bobby Duffy has spent years studying generational distinctions. In this book, he argues that our generational identities are not fixed but fluid, reforming throughout our lives.

In 1983 Chicago elected Harold Washington as the city's first black mayor. This is the story of Washington's improbable victory over Jane Byrne, heir to the late Richard J. Daley's political empire, and over Daley's eldest son. It's the story of a coalition outside the party's mainstream coming to power and ruling in the country's most political of cities. In Fire on the Prairie, Gary Rivlin reveals the personalities and philosophies of those who were at the center of events, from black separatists such as Lu Palmer to community organizers such as Jesse Jackson....

In What's Wrong With the World, G.K. Chesterton discusses big business, education, government, feminism, and more. The work draws on thousands of essays Chesterton contributed to newspapers and periodicals over his lifetime. Eloquently opposing materialism, hypocrisy, and snobbery, Chesterton was a steadfast champion of family, faith, and the working man. The work includes a discussion of humankind and its nature, the power of spirituality and the consequences of increasing secularism in the modern world, and the role of education in shaping the young to fit into the society.

The leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society "the aspirational class" and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class deepens the ever-wider class divide.

Hebert Spencer coined the famous expression “survival of the fittest”. Spencer’s theory inspired Andrew Carnegie and William Graham Sumner's visions of unbridled and unrepentant capitalism of the United States in late 19th century. Carnegie interpreted Spencer's social theory as justifying merciless economic competition. Spencer's reputation was not recovered for many years from the interpretative caricatures of many scholars, thus marginalizing him to the hinterlands of intellectual history. Fortunately, recent scholarship has begun restoring and repairing his legacy.

Revolutionary Wealth is about how tomorrow's wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But twenty-first-century wealth, according to the Tofflers, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics.

From the American Revolution through the Civil Rights movement, Americans have long mobilized against political, social, and economic privilege. Hierarchies based on inheritance, wealth, and political preferment were treated as obnoxious and a threat to democracy. Mass movements envisioned a new world supplanting dog-eat-dog capitalism. But over the last half-century that political will and cultural imagination have vanished. Why? The Age of Acquiescence seeks to solve that mystery.

Annus mirabilis is Latin for "wonderful year," "miraculous year," or "amazing year." For jazz, that year was 1959. It was a pinnacle and hinge point year where the forms and advancements of the past decade were consolidated and recapitulated, and jazz stretched out in a new direction. Vistas and possibilities opened up to be explored, explicitly considered, and developed in the next decade. It was a zenith with the Janus-like quality of looking backward and forward and created some of the most beautiful and challenging music ever recorded. Included here are the albums released in 1959 that ...

The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400 - the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America” in a story he wrote for the Washington Post.

* Best Seller in Amazon Kindle Store (Ideologies) * REVIEWS "This is one of the best books that I have read... I couldn't put my kindle down" "You'll realize you're not alone in thinking the world has gone crazy... and find yourself nodding in agreement." DESCRIPTION Our culture has adapted a quick-fix mentality that has undesirable side-effects. These days, we sweep problems under the rug instead of solving them, which results in them coming back – only worse. For all the convenience that modern technology brings into our lives, it fosters an attitude of instant gratification, which ...

A compelling argument - masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated - that despite increasing prosperity for most of Earth’s inhabitants and an explosion of goods overall, consumption of natural resources such as metals, water, and timber has begun to decline. Best-selling author and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Andrew McAfee says there’s a new reason for optimism: We’re past the point of "peak stuff" - from here on out, it'll take fewer resources to make things and fewer dollars to lead a comfortable life.