This book provides complete, systematic expositions of the classical sociological thinkers, theories, and concepts--from the 18th-century Enlightenment to the 20th century. It features broad, extended, and balanced coverage of both the European theorists of Social Structure as well as the Classical American Theorists of Social Psychology. Covers Montesquieu; Rousseau; Mary Wollstonecraft; Bonald and Maistre; Saint-Simon; Auguste Comte; Alexis de Tocqueville; Harriet Martineau; Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill; Karl Marx; Frederick Engels; Max Weber; Gaitano Mosca; Robert Michels); Émile Durkheim; Karl Mannheim; Charles Sanders Peirce; William James; John Dewey; George Herbert Mead. For anyone interested in Classical Social Theory and Classical Principles of Social Psychology.
A solid book, a little self-indulgent as far as it is restricted to sociological thought, and not clearly tied back to reality or other disciplines/applications. Sociological Theory should be tied back to reality or else it might as well be called Sociological Conjecture.
Excellent read. If anyone is interested in how society has formed progressed or deviated from its ways. Progress or degression. This is the "Idiots guide to"
A much more intricate examination of sociological theory, focusing on foundational thinkers and ideas, from the Enlightenment through the Big Three (Marx, Weber, Durkheim) to Mead. This one was tough, but extremely illuminating.