Essentials of Sociology. George Ritzer

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      Acknowledgments

      I need to begin by thanking Wendy Wiedenhoft, who coauthored the previous edition of this book. Unfortunately, Wendy’s workload prevented her from working on this edition. Nonetheless, many of her ideas and most of her previous contributions are to be found in this edition. I deeply appreciate everything she has contributed to this book.

      I also want thank my friends for decades, and coauthors of a previous introductory textbook, Kenneth C. W. Kammeyer and Norman R. Yetman. That book went through seven editions, the last of which was published in 1997. It was most useful to me in this text in helping define various sociological concepts that have changed little over the years. I have also been able to build on discussions of many issues covered in that text. However, because of the passage of more than two decades in sociology and in the social world (an eternity in both), as well as the innumerable changes in them, this text has comparatively little in common with the earlier one. Nonetheless, my perspective on sociology was strongly shaped by that book and the many insights and ideas provided by my friends and coauthors before, during, and in the many years after the writing of that book.

      Professor Rebecca Plante played a key role in the second edition of this book. She offered useful comments and suggestions throughout, and she was especially central in the revision of Chapter 9, on gender and sexuality. These are her areas of expertise, and the chapter is much improved because of her contributions to it. I would also like to thank Professor Paul Dean, coauthor of the second edition of my book Globalization: A Basic Text, for his numerous and important contributions to Chapter 7, on social stratification.

      Thanks also to P. J. Rey, William Yagatich, Jillet Sam, Zeynep Tufekci, and Margaret Austin Smith for their contributions. Also to be thanked for writing first drafts of parts of earlier versions of chapters are Professors William Carbonaro (Chapter 11, on education), Deric Shannon (Chapter 12, on politics), and Lester Kurtz (Chapter 11, on religion). Professor Peter Kivisto made particularly important and numerous contributions to the second edition of this book. I’m especially thankful for his work on religion and education.

      At SAGE Publications, I am especially grateful for Senior Vice President Michele Sordi’s confidence in, and support for, the project. She agreed from the beginning to do and spend whatever was necessary to make this a first-class introductory sociology text. As you can see from the finished project, she was true to her word. Michele also worked closely with me in an editorial capacity on the first edition to help get the project through some of its most difficult periods. Michele was a positive force and upbeat presence throughout the writing of this book, and I am deeply grateful for who she is and what she has done. Late in the process, Brenda Carter took over Michele’s role and performed it with the same level of expertise, good humor, and good sense (plus she got me prime seats to a game in New York involving my beloved Yankees). Jeff Lasser came on board at SAGE as sociology publisher during production of the first edition, in which he played a key role, and he has played a much more important role in the ensuing editions. Jeff has proven to be not only easy to work with but a sage (pun intended) adviser on many aspects of the book and its publication. Unfortunately, he is a Boston Red Sox fan, but nobody is perfect.

      I also need to thank content development editor Anna Villarruel, and Tiara Beatty, editorial assistant, who held steady oversight over all of the small details needed to get this book into production. Thanks also to Veronica Stapleton Hooper, who amiably and capably managed the production of this book, as well as to Renee Willers, who capably handled the copyediting.

      Publisher’s Acknowledgments

      SAGE wishes to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the following reviewers:

      About the Author

      George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. Among his awards are Honorary Doctorate from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia; Honorary Patron, University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin; American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Contribution to Teaching Award; and being named the 2013 Eastern Sociological Society’s Robin Williams Lecturer. He has chaired four sections of the American Sociological Association: Theoretical Sociology, Organizations and Occupations, Global and Transnational Sociology, and the History of Sociology. In the application of social theory to the social world, his books include The McDonaldization of Society (9th ed., 2019; 10th ed., forthcoming), Enchanting a Disenchanted World (3rd ed., 2010), and The Globalization of Nothing (2nd ed., 2007). He is the author of Globalization: A Basic Text (Blackwell, 2010; 2nd ed., 2015, with Paul Dean). He edited the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology (2012) and The Blackwell Companion to Globalization (2008) and co-edited (with Jeff Stepnisky) the Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Classical and Contemporary Major Social Theorists (2012) and the Handbook of Social Theory (2001). He was founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture. He also edited the eleven-volume Encyclopedia of Sociology (2007; 2nd ed., forthcoming, with Chris Rojek), the two-volume Encyclopedia of Social Theory (2005), and the five-volume Encyclopedia of Globalization (2012). He co-edited a special double issue (2012) of the American Behavioral Scientist on prosumption and edited a symposium on prosumer capitalism in Sociological Quarterly (2015). His books have been translated into more than 20 languages, with more than a dozen translations of The McDonaldization of Society alone.

      1 An Introduction to Sociology in the Global Age

      AP Photo/Christophe Ena

      Learning Objectives

       1.1 Identify major social changes since the 1880s studied by sociologists.

       1.2 Explain why sociologists today focus on globalization, consumption, and the digital world.

       1.3 Describe how sociologists understand continuity and change, particularly in the context of the sociological imagination and the social construction of reality.

       1.4 Differentiate between sociology’s two possible purposes, science and social reform.

       1.5 Evaluate how sociology relates to other СКАЧАТЬ