Reviews for Sociological insight

The average rating for Sociological insight based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-08-04 00:00:00 Garrison Nutt Not only a great defense of the value of sociology, it lays the foundation for more fully understanding the society you live in. Collins is probably the greatest intellectual of the 20th century who no one knows about. Don't take my word for it (because they're not my words), take Ian Welsh's, who recommended the book. His review is a good synopsis of the content in the book, though not much of a review. If all you did was read the afterword and truly take it to heart, you'd walk away a more thoughtful person. Because the book is truly a survey rather than a polemic, the arguments presented in the book can be so generalized or abstracted as to make them unpersuasive or a little dubious. One for instance, concerning how gatekeeping and the complexity of work serves to increase prestige, struck me as crossing the line into overly handwavy territory. However, to argue with Collins on specifics or to what extent each of the factors he mentions is important would be missing the point. Largely, this is an exercise in mind-expansion, and how to keep oneself from missing the multitude of possible explanations for any given phenomenon. To take from the afterword: "Supposing a given pattern as fact. Why is it like this instead of like something else...Why does it take this form rather than another?" In this regard, Collins does a wonderful job showing how to take turn questions into fruitful inquiry. It is also amusing to see how much sociological analysis has been pilfered (transformed into behavioral economics or what have you) by people who scoff at sociology. It would help a great number of people if they could actually try to understand where someone like Collins is coming from. In the current media environment, which is both amnesic and willfully blind to other cultures, the power of sociology is never going to be appreciated. It's hard to get people to notice the ideology (and concomitant assumptions) that form the basis of everyday life and "common sense." Reading this is not a bad first step to get beyond that.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-12-29 00:00:00 Steve Persons Collins es de esos sociólogos que te hacen volver a creer en la sociología. Estás medio bajón con tu carrera: lee a Collins. O como me pasó hace un par de años, después de terminar la carrera, o ahí nomás, me leí La divisón del trabajo social (completo, no las fotocopias de Socio general) y revivís. Volvés a creer, como Mulder.