George Ritzer & Jeffrey N. Stepnisky 
Sociological Theory [PDF ebook] 

Biographical and Autobiographical Sketches
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
PART I. CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Chapter 1. A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory: The Early Years
Introduction
Premodern Sociological Theory
Social Forces in the Development of Sociological Theory
Intellectual Forces and the Rise of Sociological Theory
The Development of French Sociology
The Development of German Sociology
The Origins of British Sociology
The Key Figure in Early Italian Sociology
Non-European Classical Theory
Chapter 2. Karl Marx
Introduction
The Dialectic
Dialectical Method
Human Potential
Alienation
The Structures of Capitalist Society
Materialist Conception of History
Cultural Aspects of Capitalist Society
Marx’s Economics: A Case Study
Communism
Criticisms
Contemporary Applications
Chapter 3. Emile Durkheim
Introduction
Social Facts
The Division of Labor in Society
Suicide
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Moral Education and Social Reform
Criticisms
Contemporary Applications
Chapter 4. Max Weber
Methodology
Substantive Sociology
Criticisms
Contemporary Applications
Chapter 5. Georg Simmel
Primary Concerns
Individual Consciousness and Individuality
Social Interaction (“Association”)
Social Structures and Worlds
Objective Culture
The Philosophy of Money
Secrecy: A Case Study in Simmel’s Sociology
Criticisms
Contemporary Applications
PART II. MODERN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: THE MAJOR SCHOOLS
Chapter 6. A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory: The Later Years
Early American Sociological Theory
Sociological Theory to Midcentury
Sociological Theory From Midcentury
Late-Twentieth-Century Integrative Theory
Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity
Social Theory in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 7. Structural Functionalism, Systems Theory, and Conflict Theory
Structural Functionalism
Systems Theory
Conflict Theory
Chapter 8. Varieties of Neo-Marxian Theory
Economic Determinism
Hegelian Marxism
Critical Theory
Neo-Marxian Economic Sociology
Historically Oriented Marxism
Neo-Marxian Spatial Analysis
Post-Marxist Theory
Chapter 9. Symbolic Interactionism
The Major Historical Roots
The Ideas of George Herbert Mead
Symbolic Interactionism: The Basic Principles
The Self and the Work of Erving Goffman
The Sociology of Emotions
Criticisms
The Future of Symbolic Interactionism
Chapter 10. Ethnomethodology
Defining Ethnomethodology
The Diversification of Ethnomethodology
Some Early Examples
Conversation Analysis
Studies of Institutions
Criticisms of Traditional Sociology
Stresses and Strains in Ethnomethodology
Synthesis and Integration
Chapter 11. Exchange, Network, and Rational Choice Theories
Exchange Theory
Network Theory
Network Exchange Theory
Rational Choice Theory
Chapter 12. Contemporary Feminist Theory (by Patricia Madoo Lengermann and Gillian Niebrugge)
Feminism’s Basic Questions
Historical Framing—The Second Wave: Feminism, Sociology, and Gender
Varieties of Contemporary Feminist Theory
Challenges to Feminism
Feminist Sociological Theorizing
Chapter 13. Micro-Macro and Agency-Structure Integration
Micro-Macro Integration
Agency-Structure Integration
Agency-Structure and Micro-Macro Linkages: Fundamental Differences
PART III. FROM MODERN TO POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY (AND BEYOND)
Chapter 14. Contemporary Theories of Modernity
Classical Theorists on Modernity
The Juggernaut of Modernity
The Risk Society
The Holocaust and Liquid Modernity
Modernity’s Unfinished Project
Self, Society, and Religion
Informationalism and the Network Society
Chapter 15. Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Postmodern Social Theory
Structuralism
Poststructuralism
Postmodern Social Theory
Criticisms
Chapter 16. Theories of Race and Colonialism
Fanon and the Colonial Subject
Postcolonial Theory
Critical Theories of Race and Racism
Racial Formation
A Systematic Theory of Race
Southern Theory and Indigenous Resurgence
Chapter 17. Globalization Theory
Major Contemporary Theorists on Globalization
Cultural Theory
Economic Theory
Political Theory
Neoliberalism
Chapter 18. Science, Technology, and Nature
Affect Theory
Science Studies and Actor-Network Theory
Theories of the Anthropocene
Consumption and Prosumption Theory
References
Name Index
Subject Index

Jeffrey Stepnisky is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Mac Ewan University in Alberta, Canada, where he teaches classical and contemporary social theory. He has published in the area of social theory, especially as it relates to questions of subjectivity, in journals such as The Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior and Social Theory & Health. Along with this book he is co-author of Sociological Theory, Classical Sociological Theory, and Modern Sociological Theory, and has co-edited the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists, all with George Ritzer.