"Normal Accidents" analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety - building in more warnings and safeguards - fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk - complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling - this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them. The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research. In the new afterword to this edition, Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

For the past fifty years anxiety over the problem of naturalism has driven debates in social theory. One side pursues the idea of social science as another kind of natural science, while the other radically rejects the possibility of objective and explanatory knowledge. All of the various developments in social scientific theory since then have reflected this dichotomy between naturalism and post-modernism. "Interpretation and Social Knowledge" suggests a third way, reframing this debate and offering a synthetic vision that sets out a new understanding of sociological interpretation. Analyzing the work of writers such as Theda Skocpol, Clifford Geertz, Leela Gandhi, Roy Bhaskar, Foucault, and Habermas, Isaac Ariail Reed delineates three epistemic modes of social research: realism, normativism, and interpretivism. Reed argues that the last mode provides a way forward for an anti-naturalist sociology that overcomes the opposition between interpretation and explanation and uses theory to build concrete, historically specific causal explanations of social phenomena. Both an examination of and a theoretical meditation on how social investigators do their work, "Interpretation and Social Knowledge" is an ingenious and fruitful exploration of what makes the human sciences uniquely capable of revealing and explaining our world.

Written with students in mind, Thinking Through Theory explores the role of theory in sociology with a focus on good thinking: how to keep from thinking in circles, how to know when we are contradicting ourselves, and how to avoid thinking tautologies are meaningful.

从亨利•达格尔的精致绘画到霍华德•芬斯特的神圣绘画，局外人艺术家的作品已经在艺术界中获得了独特的地位。尽管局外人艺术家以缺乏正式训练和位于社会边缘著称，但现如今，他们也参与进了传统的价值、地位和金钱的网络。数年来一直沉浸在自学艺术家世界的盖瑞•阿兰•法恩向我们呈现的这部《日常天才》，是对这个网络及其如何赋予艺术品价值的卓越洞见。 法恩考虑了民间艺术、局外人艺术和自学艺术之间的区别，然后探究了这个独特市场的经济学。法恩采访了策展人、批评家，并且深入到自学艺术家的家中，描绘了对这个系统而言，“本真性”是如何关键——在这个系统中，艺术家经常是那些贫穷、年老或患有精神疾病的人，他们具有无拘无束的表现形式，且备受尊崇。法恩揭示了这个世界的内部运作机制，在其中，金钱、个性和价值深深地交织在一起。 本书的研究对象是位于艺术界边缘的非主流艺术类型，这种艺术甚至连其命名都无法统一，有人称其为“民间艺术”，也有人称其为“局外人艺术”，而作者更倾向于用“自学艺术”来形容这个类型。这是一个由本真性所主导的领域，它有其独特的市场经济规律，以及完整的社会运作机制。

In private life, we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotion work", just as we manage our outer expressions of feeling through surface acting. In trying to bridge a gap between what we feel and what we "ought" to feel, we take guidance from "feeling rules" about what is owing to others in a given situation. Based on our private mutual understandings of feeling rules, we make a "gift exchange" of acts of emotion management. We bow to each other not simply from the waist, but from the heart. But what occurs when emotion work, feeling rules, and the gift of exchange are introduced into the public world of work? In search of the answer, Arlie Russell Hochschild closely examines two groups of public-contact workers: flight attendants and bill collectors. The flight attendant's job is to deliver a service and create further demand for it, to enhance the status of the customer and be "nicer than natural". The bill collector's job is to collect on the service, and if necessary, to deflate the status of the customer by being "nastier than natural." Between these extremes, roughly one-third of American men and one-half of American women hold jobs that call for substantial emotional labor. In many of these jobs, they are trained to accept feeling rules and techniques of emotion management that serve the company's commercial purpose. Just as we have seldom recognized or understood emotional labor, we have not appreciated its cost to those who do it for a living. Like a physical laborer who becomes estranged from what he or she makes, an emotional laborer, such as a flight attendant, can become estranged not only from her own expressions of feeling (her smile is not "her" smile), but also from what she actually feels (her managed friendliness). This estrangement, though a valuable defense against stress, is also an important occupational hazard, because it is through our feelings that we are connected with those around us. On the basis of this book, Hochschild was featured in Key Sociological Thinkers, edited by Rob Stones. This book was also the winner of the Charles Cooley Award in 1983, awarded by the American Sociological Association and received an honorable mention for the C. Wright Mills Award.

An updated edition of a standard in its field that remains relevant more than twenty years after its original publication. More than twenty years ago, sociologist and University of California, Berkeley, professor Arlie Hochschild set off a tidal wave of conversation and controversy with his bestselling book, "The Second Shift" In it, she examined what really happens in dual-career households. Adding together time in paid work, child care, and housework, she found that working mothers put in a month of work a year more than their spouses. Updated for a workforce now half female, this edition cites a range of new studies and statistics and includes a new afterword in which Hochschild assesses how much-and how little-has changed for women today.

Simply put, Thinking Through Statistics is a primer on how to maintain rigorous data standards in social science work, and one that makes a strong case for revising the way that we try to use statistics to support our theories. But don’t let that daunt you. With clever examples and witty takeaways, John Levi Martin proves himself to be a most affable tour guide through these scholarly waters.

The Strange Music of Social Life presents a dialogue on dialogic sociology, explored through the medium of music. Sociologist and composer Michael Mayerfeld Bell presents an argument that both sociology and classical music remain largely in the grip of a nineteenth-century totalizing ambition of prediction and control. He provides the refreshing approach of "strangency" to explain a sociology that tries to understand not only the regularities of social life but also the social conditions in which people do what we do not expect. Nine important sociologists and musicians respondooften vigorouslyoto the conversation Bell initiates by raising pivotal questions. The Strange Music of Social Life concludes with Bell's reply to those responses

The Marriage-Go-Round illuminates the shifting nature of America's most cherished social institution and explains its striking differences from marriage in other Western countries. Andrew J. Cherlin's three decades of study have shown him that marriage in America is a social and political battlefield in a way that it isn’t in other developed countries. Americans marry and divorce more often and have more live-in partners than Europeans, and gay Americans have more interest in legalizing same-sex marriage. The difference comes from Americans’ embrace of two contradictory cultural ideals: marriage, a formal commitment to share one's life with another; and individualism, which emphasizes personal choice and self-development. Religion and law in America reinforce both of these behavioral poles, fueling turmoil in our family life and heated debate in our public life. Cherlin’s incisive diagnosis is an important contribution to the debate and points the way to slowing down the partnership merry-go-round.

In the fifth edition Contested Knowledge, social theorist Steven Seidman presents the latest topics in social theory and addresses the current shift of 'universalist theorists' to networks of clustered debates. Responds to current issues, debates, and new social movements Reviews sociological theory from a contemporary perspective Reveals how the universal theorist and the era of rival schools has been replaced by networks of clustered debates that are relatively 'autonomous' and interdisciplinary Features updates and in-depth discussions of the newest clustered debates in social theory-intimacy, postcolonial nationalism, and the concept of 'the other' Challenges social scientists to renew their commitment to the important moral and political role social knowledge plays in public life

The 1939 edition of Howard University Professor E. Franklin Frazier's book, The Negro Family in the United States, was hailed as "a highly important contribution to the intimate history of the people of the United States". It was the first comprehensive study of the family life of African Americans, beginning with colonial-era slavery, extending through the years of slavery and emancipation, to the impact of Jim Crow and migrations to both southern and northern cities in the twentieth century. Frazier discussed all the themes that have concerned subsequent students of the African American family, including matriarchy and patriarchy, the impact of slavery on family solidarity and personal identity, the impact of long-term poverty and lack of access to education, migration and rootlessness, and the relationship between family and community. Frazier insisted that the characteristics of the family were shaped not by race, but by social conditions.

Middle- and upper-middle-class students continue to outpace those from less privileged backgrounds. Most attempts to redress this inequality focus on the issue of access to financial resources, but, as "Producing Success" makes clear, the problem goes beyond mere economics. In this eye-opening study, Peter Demerath examines a typical suburban American high school to explain how some students get ahead. Demerath undertook four years of research at a midwestern high school to examine the mercilessly competitive culture that drives students to advance. "Producing Success" reveals the many ways the community's ideology of achievement plays out: students hone their work ethic and employ various strategies to succeed, from negotiating with teachers to cheating; parents relentlessly push their children while manipulating school policies to help them get ahead; and, administrators aid high performers in myriad ways, even naming over forty students 'valedictorians'. Yet, as Demerath shows, this unswerving commitment to individual advancement takes its toll, leading to student stress and fatigue, incivility and vandalism, and the alienation of the less successful. Insightful and candid, "Producing Success" is an often troubling account of the educationally and morally questionable results of the American culture of success.

愛情 是私生活中的神祇， 是宗教消失後的宗教， 是所有信仰盡頭的終極信仰。 愛是兩個人的徹底民主形式， 愛是全然個人的自我負責。 愛就是與自我相逢，是再創由你我組成的世界， 是瑣碎而不帶道德禁令的浪漫主義， 正變成一種大眾現象：愛，世俗的宗教。 那些期待找到愛的人，都正尋求此時此刻的救贖， 所謂的「彼岸」就在此世， 有它自己的聲音、形體與意志。 宗教告訴我們有死後的生命， 愛卻說，生命在死之前。 如果不正是因為另一個人使我成為我， 我為何要將另一人據為己有呢？ 不過這正包括了一個佔據的特殊模式， 另一人的自由本身正式我們想要擁有的。 本書從社會學角度來審視愛情，將個別的生命史經驗放在較廣泛的社會秩序中來理解，或許更可以領悟到：混亂與正常都屬於秩序的一部份，正常或穩定代表著理想的狀態，混亂或不穩定則是現代人不得不面對的現實，愛情的正常性混亂，就是這兩種矛盾的統一。學著忍受它吧！

布赫迪厄討論文化生產最重要的作品， 為其藝術社會學理論集大成之作。 透過科學分析，對於作品的感性之愛，就能實現在某種對事物的理智之愛。——布赫迪厄 皮耶‧布赫迪厄（Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, 1930-2002）是法國當代重要的思想家，也是20世紀最具影響力的社會學家之一。 本書是布赫迪厄以19世紀下半葉的法國文學場域為起點，所展開的一場對於文學與藝術場域的深刻分析。書中，他企圖在場域系統中把社會結構與複雜的情感心理連結起來，並以福樓拜的《情感教育》作為一個寫實主義文本裡的社會生活寫照摹本，深入發揮他的場域理論。 全書共分為〈前言〉、〈序曲〉和三個部分。作者分別在〈前言〉指出當代學術研究問題所在，並提出解決之道；〈序曲〉主要針對《情感教育》的分析；〈第一部〉，以法國19世紀中葉以後的文學與藝術現象，討論了文化生產場域中的自主性問題；〈第二部〉，為藝術作品的系統科學分析設立了基本原理；〈第三部〉，則是對純美學的分析。 布赫迪厄首先提出一個對於文學與藝術作品的質疑，亦即「為什麼那麼多人宣稱藝術作品的體驗是不可言喻？為什麼人們會表現出抗拒文學與藝術作品的科學分析？」對此，他認為社會學家對於文學與藝術作品的科學分析，並不會破壞閱讀或觀賞文學與藝術時的愉悅感受；此種科學分析看似消解了創作者先驗的特殊性，但這全是因為要重建那個圍繞著作者、將作者「像個點一樣地包含進來」的社會權力場域空間，並且在重建工作的最後，再找回這份特殊性。 而福樓拜與其小說《情感教育》即是布赫迪厄實踐此種科學分析的楔子。透過對於《情感教育》當中各個角色的討論，布赫迪厄指出，小說此種文學類型——如同《情感教育》所顯示出的那樣——之所以如此迷人而深具魅力，就在於其呈現了一個「真相」，亦即作者在小說當中所架構出的某種社會世界結構，也即是某種權力場域，在其中，每個角色及其之間，都象徵了在場域當中受到秉性（disposition）與各種慣習（habitus）影響的各個位置（position）、及所佔位者之間的關係。布赫迪厄繼而論證了，無論文學或藝術，所有社會場域的運作，其根源皆是一種「幻象」、一種對於場域內「遊戲」的潛心投入，亦即一種集體生產與複製的集體信仰價值，藉此交織建構出社會世界的意義，同時，也是各個位置之間的認證權力的壟斷與鬥爭。 由此，我們才能夠真正理解在那些由文學作家所打造的幻覺形式（小說），又或者是藝術家所拋出的關於藝術作品的體驗當中，究竟是什麼樣特定的構成條件，使得這些作品得以成立，並受到讀者與觀眾的認可。 本書可謂讓藝術從純粹藝術、美學的探討角度，轉而去分析作家、作品、團體和社會場域之間的關係。 本書特色 1.百年來不可不讀的當代社會思潮經典。 2.布赫迪厄討論文化生產最重要的作品。 3.內容廣博精深，可說是布赫迪厄藝術社會學理論集大成之作。 名人推薦 淡江大學西班牙語文學系專任副教授 林盛彬

How often do working-class children obtain college degrees and then pursue professional careers? Conversely, how frequently do the children of doctors and lawyers fail to enter high status careers upon completion of their schooling? As inequalities of wealth and income have increased in industrialized nations over the past 30 years, have patterns of between-generation mobility changed? In this volume, leading sociologists and economists present original findings and conceptual arguments in response to questions like these. After assessing the range of mobility patterns observed in recent decades, the volume considers the mechanisms that generate mobility, focusing on both the training and skills that are rewarded in the labor market as well as the role of educational institutions in certifying graduates for professional positions. The volume concludes with chapters that assess the contexts of social mobility, examining the impact of macroeconomic conditions and societal levels of inequality on social and economic mobility.

The colorful charts, graphs, and maps presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition by famed sociologist and black rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois offered a view into the lives of black Americans, conveying a literal and figurative representation of "the color line." From advances in education to the lingering effects of slavery, these prophetic infographics-beautiful in design and powerful in content- make visible a wide spectrum of black experience. W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits collects the complete set of graphics in full color for the first time, making their insights and innovations available to a contemporary imagination. As Maria Popova wrote, these data portraits shaped how "Du Bois himself thought about sociology, informing the ideas with which he set the world ablaze three years later in The Souls of Black Folk."