The Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists

The Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists is a survey of classical and contemporary social theory that focuses on the thinkers themselves. In original essays especially commissioned for this volume, leading experts and practitioners examine the life and work of 25 major theorists, discussing the social and intellectual context of their writings and offering an analysis of the impact of their work over time. Each author balances systematic treatment of a particular theorist with personal interpretations of the theorist s work.

By grouping the selected theorists into classical and contemporary sections, the book gives a sense not only of where social theory once was, but where it is heading. The canon is broadened with the inclusion of several social thinkers not ordinarily found in such a volume: classical theorists such as Martineau, Gilman, and DuBois; and contemporary theorists such as Elias, Baudrillard, Bell, and Butler. Each chapter includes bibliographies of the theorists′ most important works, as well as of key secondary works. For the student, scholar, or practitioner, this Companion offers an indispensable resource and reference to the life and times of the thinkers who have tried to make sense of our social surroundings.

Preface.

List of Contributors.

Introduction: Towards a More Open Canon (George Ritzer and Doug Goodman, University of Maryland)

Part I: Classical Social Theorists.

1. Auguste Comte (Mary Pickering, San Jose State University).

2. Harriet Martineau (Susan Hoecker–Drysdale, Concordia University).

3. Herbert Spencer (Jonathan H. Turner, University of California).

4. Karl Marx (Robert J. Antonio, University of Kansas).

5. Max Weber (Stephen Kalberg, Boston University).

6. Emile Durkheim (Robert Alun Jones, University of Illinois).

7. Georg Simmel (Lawrence Scaff, Penn State University).

8. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Charles Lemert, Wesleyan University).

9. George Herbert Mead (Dimitri N. Shalin, University of Nevada–Las Vegas).

10. W.E.B. DuBois (Charles Lemert, Wesleyan University).

11. Alfred Schutz (Mary Rogers, University of West Florida).

12. Talcott Parsons (Victor Lidz, Hahnemann University).

Part II: Contemporary Social Theorists.

13. Robert K. Merton (Piotr Sztompka, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland).

14. Erving Goffman (Gary Alan Fine and Philip Manning, Northwestern University and Cleveland State University).

15. Richard M. Emerson (Karen S. Cook and Joseph Whitmeyer, Stanford University and University of North Carolina at Charlotte).

16. James Coleman (Siegwart Lindenberg, University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

17. Harold Garfinkel (Anne Rawls, Wayne State University).

18. Daniel Bell (Malcolm Waters, University of Tasmania, Australia).

19. Norbert Elias (Richard Kilminster and Stephen Mennell, University of Leeds and University College Dublin).

20. Michel Foucault (Barry Smart, University of Portsmouth).

21. Jürgen Habermas (William Outhwaite, University of Sussex).

22. Anthony Giddens (Christopher G. A. Bryant and David Jary, University of Salford and Staffordshire University).

23. Pierre Bourdieu (Craig Calhoun, New York University).

24. Jean Baudrillard (Douglas Kellner).

25. Judith Butler (Patricia T. Clough, UCLA).

Index.

George Ritzer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland. He has chaired both the Theoretical and the Organizations and Occupations sections of the American Sociological Association, and authored more than 25 books, including Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society (1995), The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life (1995), Classical Sociological Theory (second edition, 1995), and The McDonalization Thesis: Explorations and Extensions (1998).

"The contributors are well–established theorists, and the essays are consistently excellent." Raymon A. Morrow, University of Alberta