Conventional understanding of what it means to "explain" something in the social sciences provokes unnecessary confusion and conflict, and indeed is often based more on analysts' imaginations than actors' realities. The Explanation of Social Action lays out a sustained critique of this understanding[...]
Written with students in mind, Thinking Through Theory explores the role of theory in sociology with a focus on good thinking: how to keep from thinking in circles, how to know when we are contradicting ourselves, and how to avoid thinking tautologies are meaningful.[...]
"Social Structures" is a book that examines how structural forms spontaneously arise from social relationships. Offering major insights into the building blocks of social life, it identifies which locally emergent structures have the capacity to grow into larger ones and shows how structural tendenc[...]