Concepts of Social Stratification

This book looks at how sociological concepts that were first 'invented' and applied to describe social inequality in Europe were also used to understand and explain inequality in the United States. However, under very different circumstances and conditions the concepts needed to be adjusted - either through changing their precise meaning or by using related concepts. In Concepts of Social Stratification the author tries to analyse this change by looking at how some of the most prominent American sociologists have tried to conceptualise their own society while at the same time addressing the complex relationship between an assumed political equality and de facto social inequality.

Introduction: Why Study the Semantics of Social Stratification? Karl Marx's Critique of Political Economy Max Weber: Political Economy as Sociology Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Tönnies: Social Differentiation and Functional Sociology Alexis de Tocqueville's Political Sociology In Dispraise of Economics: Thorstein Veblen The City and Human Ecology: The Urban Sociology of the Chicago School (Robert Park and William Burgess) The Origins of Cultural and Community Studies: Robert and Helen Lynd's Anatomy of Middletown The Political Sociology of C.Wright Mills: An Anatomy of the American Power Structure Dissecting the 'Fine Distinctions' in America's System of Social Stratification: Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb Maintaining the Equilibrium of Freedom and Order: Talcott Parsons' Resuscitation of Functionalism From 'Black Nation' to 'Black Bourgeoisie' to 'Urban Underclass'-the sociology of African American Communities: W.E.B. Du Bois, Franklin E. Frazier and William J. Wilson Back to the Future: Mike Davis' and Erik Olin Wright's Marxist Interpretations of Class Struggle in the U.S. Tocqueville Revisited: American Exceptionalism in the Political Sociology of Seymour Martin Lipset Epilogue: The Semantics of Social Stratification Index