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Reviews the book "Classifying Social Data: New Applications of Analytic Methods for Social Science Research," edited by H.C. Hudson.

Reviews the book "Micro-Sociological Theory. Perspectives on Sociological Theory," vol. 2, "Sage Studies in International Sociology 34," edited by H.J. Helle and S.N. Eisenstadt.

Reviews the book "Sociology and the Twilight of Man: Homocentrism and Discourse in Sociological Theory," by Charles Lemert.

Reviews the book "Sociological Explanation As Translation," by Stephen P. Turner.

Reviews the book "L'Analyse des Données, I et II" by J.P. Benjecri.

Reviews the book "Sociologie de l'Education, textes fondamentaux," edited by Alain Gras.

Reviews the book "The Micro-Macro Link," edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Bernard Giesen, Richard Münch and Neil J. Smelser.

The article reviews the book "Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms," edited by Pierre Demeulenaere.

The article reviews the book "Explaining the Normative," by Stephen P. Turner.

This article presents information about the books "The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First Century Capitalist Societies," by Neil Fligstein, and "The Twenty-First-Century Firm: Changing Economic Organization in International Perspective," edited by Paul DiMaggio. Economic sociology is quickly evolving as an umbrella theoretical enterprise seeking to integrate various insights drawn from organizational, cultural, and political sociology. Its focus of attention is on what makes markets, industries, and firms stable arrangements for organizing economic exchange. Fligstein's book is one of those books that no sociologist can afford to ignore because it speaks to fundamental debates in sociology, including the origins of institutions, the shared understandings that underlie action, and the complex relationship between society and the state. Fligstein's book makes an important contribution primarily because he is explicit about the need to combine the political and cultural approaches to the study of economic institutions and action. In the introductory essay in his book, DiMaggio reviews the characteristics of the classic model of sociologist Max Weber as it applies to the business firm.

Reviews the book "Department and Discipline," by Andrew Abbott.

Reviews the book "Race and Other Misadventures: Essays in Honor of Ashley Montagu in His Ninetieth Year," edited by Larry T. Reynolds and Leonard Lieberman.

This article discusses the book "Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It," by Howard S. Becker. The book is divided into four major chapters, regarding imagery, sampling, concepts and logic. Of all Becker's books, this, written as he approaches retirement, is his most personal. In an odd way it constitutes his intellectual biography, and has the humor and anecdotal richness implied by that term. His persona becomes known through his research. Most of his major projects find a place in this exposition. Thus, the analytic and theoretical toolkit of strategies that he wishes to share is richly-illustrated through his own research life. In the guise of writing a treatise on methodological concerns, Becker has managed to pen an homage to his teachers, Herbert Blumer and, especially, Everett Hughes. Becker reminds us that these two figures are major contributors to the understanding of substantive concerns central in American sociology at mid-century, namely, social organization, race relations, industrialization, occupations, and the like.

Reviews the book "Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918," by Mary Jo Deegan.

Reviews the book "On the Beginning of Social Inquiry," by Peter McHugh, Stanley Raffel, Daniel C. Foss and Alan F. Blum.

As periods of popular protest and radicalization of intellectuals decline, there tends to emerge a literature of disillusionment. Mass action entails a considerable suspension of disbelief, an excess of optimism about the possibilities for social transformation, an emphasis on will over necessity. The more far-reaching the aspirations of the movement, the more its adherents are likely to experience frustration. The feeling that anything is possible is intrinsic to and necessary for moments of intense popular revolt. Such feelings arise spontaneously when those who had been privatized and submissive find amongst themselves a collective power to intervene in history. Such feelings account for the festive air of many insurrectionary moments and for the self-sacrifice and communalism that characterize the rebels. The making of history would always be left to elites who command the usual resources for exercising power, unless those without such resources can somehow feel that power can nevertheless be theirs. Unless the obvious risks of taking action are made worthwhile by beliefs in the possibility of actually creating a reality beyond that which is immediately apparent, then power would never be challenged by the powerless.

Reviews the book "Men in a Developing Society: Geographic and Social Mobility in Monterrey, Mexico," by Jorge Balan, Harley L. Browning and Elizabeth Jelin.

Reviews the book "Men in a Developing Society: Geographic and Social Mobility in Monterrey, Mexico," reviewed by Arthur M. Conning.

Reviews the book "The Challenger Launch Decision, Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA," by Diane Vaughan.

Reviews the book "Max Scheler on Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing," edited and introduced by Harold J. Bershady.

This article presents information on the book "Transformation in the Writing: A Case of Surrender-and-Catch," by Kurt H. Wolff. The title of the book suggests that the articulated catch of surrender-and-catch, as transforming the self, is intrinsically, if not fundamentally, ethical in a sense that does not, however, lose the epistemological search for truth as the articulated catch-of-surrender. "Transformation in the Writing," is divided into three sections. The first is concerned with the writing of autobiography. It describes the transformation of Wolff's identity as an emigre during his early years in the U.S. The second, and most comprehensive, section emphasizes the testing and relevance of surrender-and-catch as epistemology and sociology. Further, in the third section, Wolff calls for a sociology of sociology and a sociology of philosophy. In "Transformation in the Writing," Wolff also refers to the articulation of the catch as rendering what is articulated present, though Wolff is well aware that the catch is always open to revision. Perhaps Wolff is confusing the presence of the subjectivity of the other, which can never be wholly exhausted, with what is wholly present as essence.

The article focuses on two books of Kurt H. Wolff, "O Loma! Constituting a Self (1977-1984)," and "Survival and Sociology: Vindicating the Human Subject." There are two, among many, ways to read and respond to these two recent texts by Wolff. One is to read Wolff against the backdrop of his earlier work especially the method of surrender-and-catch. At all times the reader must invoke and be enveloped by Wolff's surrender-and-catch which should be understood as "an orientation, an outlook, a Weltanschauung." In such a reading an operative thematic is phrased as 'becoming.' This expression captures not only the essential thrust of "O Loma!", but encapsulates the processes evident in "Survival and Sociology." "O Loma!" appears as a series of journal entries contextualized around the preparation of writing about Loma, a town in New Mexico where Wolff has done a series of studies. There are few notations about the physical site or interactional features of the community of Loma; instead the entries reflect an author becoming better acquainted with himself.

Reviews the book "Habits of the Heart," by Robert Bellah, Richard Madson, Ann Swidler, William Sullivan and Samual Tipton.

Reviews the book "Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge," by Max Scheler.

Reviews the book "Introducing Visual Sociology," by Timothy J. Curry and Alfred C. Clarke.

Reviews the book "The Value Controversy in Sociology: A New Orientation for the Profession," by Dennis C. Foss.

Reviews the book "A Poetic for Sociology," by Richard H. Brown.

The article reviews the book "New Directions in the Sociology of Global Development," by Frederick H. Buttel and Philip McMichael .

Reviews the book "Life-World and Social Realities," by Thomas Luckmann.

Reviews the book "The Crisis in Sociology: Problems of Sociological Epistemology," by R. Boudon.

Reviews the book "The View From Goffman," edited by Jason Ditton.

Reviews the book "Sociology, Work and Industry," by Tony J. Watson.

Reviews the book "Between Public and Private: The Lost Boundaries of the Self," by Joseph Bensman and Robert Lilienfeld.