Study Guide: Foundations

Glossary:

 

  Please Note:

Names to Know: 

Karl Marx

Max Weber

Practice Quiz

Graphing the Problems:

Percent Living on Farms

Number of Persons Fed per Farm Worker

Human Development Index: U.S.

Human Development Index: Egypt

Human Development Index: Haiti

Human Development Index: Somalia
 

Links:

C. Wright Mills Home Page

American Sociological Association

The Marx/Engels Internet Archive

Essays:

1. According to Becker (Whose Side are We On?), under what conditions are sociologists accused of being biased?
2. What role should values play in sociology?
3. What is the hierarchy of credibility?  Provide an example from your own life to illustrate this concept.
4. According to Mills (The Promise), what is the difference between a personal trouble and a public issue?  Why is this distinction important?
5. What is the sociological imagination?  What promise does it offer?
6. According to The Sociological Imagination,  where is decision making power located?  How does this differ today from past societies?
7. What is "legitimatization"?  What are its functions and dysfunctions in the modern world?
8. Compare and contrast Mills' use of the terms "rationality" and "reason."  How does this define the central dilemma of our time?  How does it relate to the concept of alienation?
9. What is the "classical" tradition in the social sciences?  How does Mills relate this tradition to the problems confronting modern society?

Bibliography:

Coser, Lewis A. 1971.  Master's of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and social Context. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

Durkheim, Emile.  1951 [1897] Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. New York: The Free Press.

Durkheim, Emile. 1965 [1915] The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Free Press.

Freund, Julien.  1969.  The Sociology of Max Weber.  New York: Vintage.

Kolakowski, L.  1978.  Main Currents of Marxism.  Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Marx, Karl. 1963.  Karl Marx: Early Writings.  Translated and edited by T.B. Bottomore. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. 1968.  Selected Works in One Volume. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1970 [1845] . The German Ideology. Edited by C.J. Arthur.  New York: International Publishers.

Merton, Robert K. 1968.  Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.

McNeill, William H.  1993.  A History of the Human Community.  New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Mills, C. Wright.  1959.  The Sociological Imagination.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Nisbet, Robert A.  1966. The Sociological Tradition.  New York: Basic Books.

Nisbet, Robert A. 1973.  The Social Philosophers.  St. Albans, Herts: Paladin.

Spencer, Herbert.  [1885] 1967.  The Evolution of Society, Selections from Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology. Edited by Robert L. Carneiro. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.

Spencer, Herbert.  1897.  The Principles of Sociology. New York: D. Appleton.

Tocqueville, Alexis de. [1835] 1956.  Democracy in America.  Edited by Robert D. Meffner. New York:  New American Library.

Weber, Max.  1946.  From Max Weber.  Translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Galaxy.

Weber, Max. 1978 [1921] .  Economy and Society.  Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkley: University of California Press.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.