Description :
The culmination of a distinguished career, this fascinating exploration into the nature of human social life describes the field of sociology as a way of looking at the world rather than as a simple gathering of facts about it. Kai Erikson notes that sociologists look out at the same human scenes as poets, historians, economists, or any other observers of the vast social landscape spread out before them, but select different aspects of that vast panorama to focus on and attend to. Erikson’s lively and accessible volume considers how sociology became a field of study, and how it has turned its attention over time to new areas of study such as race and gender and what Erikson calls “social speciation.” This book provides readers with new ways of thinking about human culture and social life—an exhilarating sense of what the world looks like when viewed with a sociologist’s eye.
Kai Erikson is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology and American Studies, Yale University. He is Former President of the American Sociological Association, and has twice won the ASA award for writing the best book published in the year preceding.
Content :
Introduction: A Way of Looking
Approaches
View from the Fourteenth Floor
The Individual and the Social
Knowing the Place for the First Time
Disaster at Buffalo Creek
Beginning
Human Origins
Discovering the Social
Coming to Terms with Social Life
The Journey of Piotr and Kasia Walkowiak
Content
Village
City
Worlds Beyond
It Seemed Like the Whole Bay Died
Processes
Becoming a Person
Creating Divisions
Becoming a People
War Comes to Pakrac
Postscripts
Sources
Acknowledgments
Index No other Books by the same author | |