Description
Social theorists dwell on the canonical works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim but little on the theories of the major contemporary macrotheorists. This book fills this gap with a focus on the work of four modern theorists who have taken on the larger questions spawned by classical social theory. C. Wright Mills, Marvin Harris, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Gerhard Lenski have examined such phenomena and processes as the rise and impact of capitalism; the centralization and enlargement of authority; inequality; and the historical intensification of production and populations. Borrowing what is useful from the classics as well as relying on contemporary practitioners and empirical evidence, each theorist adds his own insights and interpretations in constructing a comprehensive perspective of sociocultural stability and change. This book fully synthesizes and documents each perspective, using language and examples that resonate with the general reader. A short biography on each theorist is also provided.
Author Info
Frank W. Elwell, Professor of Sociology at Murray State University, is the author of The Evolution of the Future (Praeger, 1991) and Industrializing America (Praeger, 1999).
Contents
Prologue: The Past
Chapter 1: The Sociology of C. Wright Mills
Assumptions
Bureaucracy
Power and Authority
Elites
Mass Society
Rationalization
Social Problems
Role of Social Science
The Sociological Imagination
Excursus: Modern American Bureaucracy
About Mills
Chapter 2: Marvin Harris’s Cultural Materialism
Assumptions
Universal Patterns
The Research Strategy
Individual Behavior
Role of Elites
Intensification
Harris and Marx
The Domestication of Plants and Animals
The Industrial Revolution
Hyperindustrialism
Excursus: Recent Intensification of the American Infrastructure
About Harris
Chapter 3: Wallerstein’s World-Systems Analysis
The Capitalist World System
Capitalist World-System Stability and Change
The Decline and Fall of the Capitalist World-System
Excursus: Declining Profits and Hegemony?
About Wallerstein
Chapter 4: Gerhard Lenski’s Ecological-Evolutionary Theory
Social Evolution
Excursus: Inequality Revisited
About Lenski
Chapter 5: Meta-Analysis
The Rise of Capitalism
Excursus: The Growth of Bureaucracy
Conclusion