The challenges of teaching a successful introductory sociology course today demand materials from a publisher very different from the norm. Texts that are organized the way the discipline structures itself intellectually no longer connect with the majority of student learners. This is not an issue of pandering to students or otherwise seeking the lowest common denominator.

On the contrary, it is a question of again making the practice of sociological thinking meaningful, rigorous, and relevan...

Corruption, crime, economic inequality, religious fundamentalism, financial crises, environmental degradation, population ageing, gender inequality, large-scale migration... This book tackles many of the most pressing problems facing societies today. The authors demonstrate that similar social mechanisms lie behind many of these seemingly disparate problems.

Indeed, many societal problems can be traced back to behaviours that are perfectly rational and often well-intended from an individual p...

Not your parents’ social problems textbook

As one of the few teaching textbooks in the market about longitudinal research and data, this book provides a strong foundation in the fundamentals of longitudinal research, discussing core issues such as study design, sampling, attrition and missing data.

Designed to help students think critically about the skills and knowledge they need to understand and tackle inequality, and provide meaningful help to those people most in need.

Written for a wide audience, from undergraduate and graduate students to citizens and activists, this engaging text explains how economics can help us to better understand the development of digital technologies. Â

Illuminates the social pretentions of the middle classes in the modern world, focusing on the tastes and preferences of the French bourgeoisie. This book argues that the social world functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.

Crime, Criminal Justice & Religion: A Critical Appraisal seeks to bridge a gap in the examination of crime and criminal justice by taking both a historical and contemporary lens to explore the influence of religion.

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune, now in paperback with a new reading group guide

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.

Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own pa...