Key Sociological Thinkers

Citation

Stones, R. (Ed.). (2017). Key Sociological Thinkers (3rd ed.). Palgrave / Red Globe Press.

Chapter Summary

The third edition is an edited volume of twenty-four chapters, each by a different specialist, in three parts, preceded by an introduction by the editor and followed by notes, a bibliography and an index; the main text runs to about 390 pages. The publisher's front matter shows that every thinker chapter follows one design: "Driving Impulses" (the thinker's motives and background), "Key Issues" (the central ideas), "Seeing Things Differently" (an application of the thinker's ideas to a concrete social situation) and "Legacies and Unfinished Business", with annotated further reading. Several chapters add extended accounts of related thinkers, such as "After Marx" on Gramsci and Laclau or "After Althusser" on Poulantzas and Jessop, and key-concept glossary boxes. New in this edition are chapters on Mead, Du Bois, Latour and Alexander, five chapters by new authors (on Durkheim, Merton, Goffman, Bourdieu and Giddens) and a new introduction.

Introduction: Developing Theoretical Skills by Engaging with Key Sociological Thinkers

Rob Stones argues that sociology faces particular difficulties because social life involves power, reflection and contested norms. He proposes two complementary ways to read the thinkers, an "internal" reading on the thinker's own terms and a "meta-theoretical" reading that steps back to ask what a theorist is doing when theorising, and explains the common chapter format and its use for thinking across thinkers. Bold type in the chapters marks the first mention of another key thinker, and the introduction includes exercises.

Part I, Chapters 1–7: Karl Marx; Max Weber; Émile Durkheim; Georg Simmel; W.E.B. Du Bois; G.H. Mead; Talcott Parsons

The first part brings together the classical founders and early twentieth-century figures. The Marx chapter by Bob Jessop covers a materialist social ontology, historical materialism, the critique of capitalism, class and the state; the Weber chapter by Lawrence Scaff covers religion and economics, rationalisation, method and legitimate domination. Du Bois, introduced as inaugurating intersectional sociology, and Mead, Parsons and Simmel round out the part. The Marx chapter includes the "After Marx" account of Gramsci and Laclau.

Part II, Chapters 8–15: Robert K. Merton; Norbert Elias; Erving Goffman; Harold Garfinkel; Louis Althusser; Jürgen Habermas; Pierre Bourdieu; Michel Foucault

The second part covers mid-twentieth-century theory. Merton is presented through structural and functional analysis, middle-range theories, the sociology of science and anomie; Elias through civilizing processes and figurations; Goffman through the interaction order and impression management; Garfinkel through shared reasoning and the documentary method. The remaining chapters treat Althusser (structuralism, ideology and interpellation), Habermas (the public sphere and communicative action), Bourdieu (habitus, cultural capital, field, reproduction) and Foucault (discipline, sexuality, ethics and the genealogy of the present). Four chapters carry "After" sections on Beck, Poulantzas and Jessop, Fraser and Honneth, and Sayer.

Part III, Chapters 16–24: Dorothy E. Smith; Stuart Hall; Nancy J. Chodorow; Anthony Giddens; Michael Mann; Zygmunt Bauman; Arlie Russell Hochschild; Bruno Latour; Jeffrey C. Alexander

The last part moves to theorists active in recent decades. Smith is covered through the sociology of everyday life and institutional ethnography, Hall through cultural circuitry and cultural politics, Chodorow through gender identity and mothering, Giddens through practices and the duality of structure, and Mann through networks of power and globalisations. Bauman's chapter traces the move from Marxism to postmodernity and liquid modernity; Hochschild's covers feeling rules, emotion management and emotional labour; Latour's covers actor-network theory; and Alexander's covers cultural sociology and the civil sphere.

Key Concepts

Part I

• Historical materialism: the account of history in the Marx chapter, linked to the critique of capitalism and class.
• Rationalization and legitimate domination: Weber's themes in the contents.
• Sociation and objective and subjective culture: Simmel's terms, among the glossary boxes.
• Pattern variables: Parsons's concept, also a glossary box.

Part II

• Manifest and latent functions: Merton's distinction in a glossary box.
• Interaction order and impression management: Goffman's focus.
• Habitus, cultural capital and field: the three concepts named in the Bourdieu chapter.
• Interpellation: Althusser's term for how ideological state apparatuses address individuals.

Part III

• Institutional ethnography: Smith's method of inquiry.
• Emotional labour and feeling rules: Hochschild's concepts.
• Liquid modernity: Bauman's later theme.
• Actor-network theory: Latour's approach.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A consistent chapter design. The four fixed parts of each chapter make thinkers easy to compare and tell the reader where to find the applied example.
• Specialist authors. The publisher says the chapters are written by leading academics in the field, among them Bob Jessop on Marx, Lawrence Scaff on Weber and William Outhwaite on Habermas, and the editor describes them as short, readable introductions.
• A wide range. The list runs from Marx and Weber to Du Bois, Dorothy Smith, Stuart Hall, Hochschild and Latour, and the publisher says the edition added Mead, Du Bois, Latour and Alexander.
• Built for study. The introduction supplies a method and exercises for thinking across thinkers, and every chapter has annotated further reading.

Limitations

• A theorist-by-theorist structure. The book is a guide to thinkers, not to schools or debates, so readers must make the connections themselves; the editor's introduction and bold cross-references help but do not replace a survey of traditions.
• Short chapters. Chapters run to roughly ten to twenty pages, so a thinker's major works can only be sketched.
• Selection. Twenty-four chosen thinkers leave others out; the publisher notes that some earlier chapters (such as Adorno, Blumer, de Beauvoir, Freud and Lockwood) were moved to the companion website.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the contemporary theory list, this is the book organised by thinker. Elliott's Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction is organised by theoretical tradition and covers post-war debates, while Baert and Carreira da Silva's Social Theory in the Twentieth Century and Beyond assesses each school and argues for pragmatism; either complements Stones, whose chapters are self-contained accounts of single thinkers. Contemporary Sociological Theory is a reader of original selections, which can follow the relevant chapter.

Giddens's The Constitution of Society and Bourdieu's Distinction are primary works that the chapters on those thinkers prepare for.

How to Use This Book

No prior theory is required; some introductory sociology helps with the examples. The editor presents the book as designed to teach, and mentions using the second edition as the core text of a third-year undergraduate unit.

A practical plan: read the introduction first, since it sets up the two ways of reading. Then pick chapters according to your course rather than reading front to back, using the Part I chapters as the foundation for the others. For each chapter, read "Driving Impulses" and "Key Issues", then work through "Seeing Things Differently" as a model for applying the ideas, and use the further reading to move to primary texts. When chapters name another thinker in bold, follow the cross-reference to compare them.