Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
Max Weber’s essay “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (1905) is considered one of the most important works in sociology. In it, Weber analyzes the cultural and religious conditions that contributed to the development of modern capitalism. This work enables students to analytically examine the interplay between culture, economy, and society, especially the
With his work Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (1969), Herbert Blumer laid the theoretical and methodological foundation of symbolic interactionism. As a student of George Herbert Mead, he not only coined the term for this school of thought but also shaped one of the most influential microsociological theories of the 20th century. Blumer’s approach places
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (La Distinction, 1979) is one of the most influential sociological works of the 20th century. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social inequality continues to shape sociology today, especially the analysis of social class, mobility, and the reproduction of power relations. The book is based on an extensive
Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish is one of the most influential works of critical social analysis in the 20th century. Published in 1975, the book marks the beginning of Foucault’s “genealogical” phase and investigates the historical transformations of power, punishment, and subjectivity. At its core is the shift from corporal punishment to subtle, pervasive disciplinary
With his essay “Social Structure and Anomie”, published in 1949 in the volume Social Theory and Social Structure, Robert K. Merton presented a key text of modern sociology. The essay first appeared in 1938 in the American Sociological Review, but is best known from its extensively revised versions in Merton’s Social Theory and Social Structure