Essentials of Sociology Anthony Giddens

All of the chapters in the book have been updated and revised to reflect the most recent available research and data. Each chapter opens with a contemporary news event or social trend—ranging from the most local (like a confrontation between a dog walker and bird-watcher in New York’s Central Park) to the most global (such as the rapid spread of COVID-19). These events are used to introduce and explain the key sociological concepts, themes, and studies that are elaborated throughout the text. New to this edition, racial and ethnic categorizations are considered proper nouns and thus are capitalized.

As Temple University journalism professor Lori Tharps notes, “Black with a capital B refers to people of the African diaspora. Lowercase black is simply a color” (Tharps, 2014). In the same way, “White” as a racial category acknowledges the functions of this label in society. Racial designations are not neutral markers of skin tone but socially constructed categories whose meanings and boundaries shift over time and place. Treating these categories as proper nouns recognizes them as such (Appiah, 2020).

Sociology is the scientific study of human social life, groups, and societies. A dazzling and compelling enterprise, it focuses on our own behavior as social beings. The scope of sociological study is extremely wide, ranging from the analysis of how people establish social connections with one another on the local level to the investigation of social processes on a global scale.

Sociology teaches us that what we regard as natural, inevitable, good, or true may not be such, and that the “givens” of our lives—including things we assume to be genetic or biological— are strongly influenced by historical, cultural, social, and even technological forces. Understanding the subtle yet complex and profound ways in which our individual lives reflect the contexts of our unique social experiences is central to its outlook. A brief example, drawn from a brilliantly reported article in the New York Times, provides a taste of the objectives of sociology (Casey, 2020).