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Book Review – Everyone’s A Winner
Joel Best’s Everyone’s A Winner – Life in our Congratulatory Culture sounded interesting but turned out to be a disappointment. I have already blogged on the topic of prize proliferation. This book is...
View Article(Sub)Urban Environments and Social Pathologies
One of the things that those of us who teach undergraduate sociology try to get across to our students is the idea that social structures shape behavior. It may seem obvious to us but in a highly...
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Book Review – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca’s Skloot‘s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is not a sociology book but there is certainly a lot of sociology between the lines. The book is a (well-deserved) best-seller, so, most people...
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Book Review – Celebrity Culture and The American Dream
Karen Sternheimer‘s Celebrity Culture and The American Dream is a good book to add to an introduction to sociology course if you want to give your students a good sense of how sociology analyzes...
View ArticleThe Individualization of The Unemployed
This is your must-read of the day: “Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work. Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the...
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Book Review – Cop in the Hood
If you enjoyed the first season of the Wire, you will enjoy Peter Moskos‘s Cop in the Hood. The book is the tale of a sociologist going native by going through the Baltimore police academy, becoming a...
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Book Review – Pricing Beauty
If you are looking for good primary sources to introduce undergraduate students to real sociology, then Ashley Mears‘s Pricing Beauty is the perfect choice. At its core, the book is a participant...
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Bowling Alone v. Playing Words With Friends – Sociability 2.0
The reason why social conservatives have declared a “culture war” is because their faulty understanding of society is that it rests on an imaginary conception of the family as the moral and economic...
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Book Review – The Outsourced Self
I have long been a fan of Arlie Hochschild’s work ever since I read The Second Shift. I think she has been one of the most readable professional sociologists, combining great insights on gender, labor...
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