John Levi Martin

We have many histories of social theory — what different authors attempted to do as they responded to previous theories. But we know precious little about how they did this in structural terms — what scaffolding they adopted and adapted to make their claims. Yet today's social thoughts largely employ structures passed down from previous generations, structures that were developed...

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.