The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology

by Nicholas Abercrombie

This is the leading dictionary of sociology available. Written by three eminent professors, it has been updated to reflect the shifts of sociological thought in the last five years making it the most comprehensive, authoritative and up to date dictionary available. It is essential reading for all students and teachers of sociology and other related courses - and also the general reader.

Genres: Reference, Sociology, Nonfiction, Dictionaries, Society, Psychology, Language

449 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Nicholas Abercrombie is emeritus fellow of sociology at Lancaster University.

Reviews

[Nick]

This is a great book, but one sore spot for me is it's lack of an index. I get that it was designed to be a self-indexing, reference book, but a concise list of it's articles would be an easy improvement with a lot of value.

I don't want to parse thorough three-hundred pages to see what's in the book.

[Carmen Ruano Durana]

Excellent reference text, clear and useful

[Jemma]

An excellent reference text that does exactly what it sets out to do, namely provide short articles on various sociological terminology. If you are studying Sociology, this is probably essential; if you have studied a subject with a lot of Sociology in it (e.g. History), you have an interest in sociological topics or even if you hate Sociology, this dictionary provides useful information on the terminology used. Of course, you are likely to know much of it already but because of the comprehensiveness here, you will learn something. The short biogs of key Sociology thinkers was particularly helpful for me.

Frankly, there are only two reasons this dictionary doesn't score higher: First it is about Sociology after all and personally, that is interesting but not as interesting as when you add in Economics, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology etc. and get History. Secondly, it is a dictionary after all and despite being a very readable one, a dictionary is rarely, if ever, a page turner or favourite book.

[Taldragon]

yet another uni relic

[Risa]

The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology (Penguin Dictionary) by Nicholas Abercrombie (2002)