Society: The Basics, Seventh Edition

Rating:
Summary: The Face of North Dakota
Review: A quick glance at the reviews listed for this book reveals that something is amiss. The Face of North Dakota is a geology book, NOT sociology. I would much rather read books than review them, but since it appears that these reviews are for some other book I will write a few words about this one.

The Face of North Dakota is an excellent overview of the surface geology of North Dakota. Bluemle is a scientist but his writing style is such that anyone can understand his work. North Dakota is a land which was shaped primarily by ice and this book gives the layman a solid understanding of how glacial activity has resulted in the present topography. The book also covers the state's non-glacial related landforms and touches on the mineral resources.

I carry a copy of this book in my vehicle and refer to it often while traveling across North Dakota with my cameras. It has greatly enhanced my appreciation of the state and the forces of nature which created what we see today.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best textbooks I've read.
Review: Excellent, excellent book! Don't listen to reviews that say this book doesn't help if you are taking a sociology class. The author is a very good writer- he doesn't talk in circles, he's specific in examples and the topics are very well-organized. The author doesn't hesitate to mention proven facts, and at the same time, he's able to maintain a genuine tone of concern, no haughtiness. One thing, though- John Macionis churns out a new edition almost every year, it seems. There is already a 7th edition out. You could probably get away with buying an older edition and still do well in your sociology class. Check with your instructor to make sure. My Soc class actually requires this 6th edition, but I am using the 5th edition, in Spring 2003, and I have an "A" in the class. There is an additional chapter in the 6th that the 5th does not have- on sexuality, I think (I apologize if there are children reading this review), but my class was not assigned to read that chapter, so I was fine. I am not sure what additions the 7th might have. Hope this helps.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Introduction
Review: I found this book to be very interesting and learned quite a bit from it. I bought it last semester for a sociology course I took. Because my professor was also the dean of that department - it amplified the learning experience I got out of the book. Each chapter also starts out with a little snippet of a story that relates to the theme of the chapter. I very much enjoyed the course and the learning experience gained out of the book.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Introduction
Review: I found this book to be very interesting and learned quite a bit from it. I bought it last semester for a sociology course I took. Because my professor was also the dean of that department - it amplified the learning experience I got out of the book. Each chapter also starts out with a little snippet of a story that relates to the theme of the chapter. I very much enjoyed the course and the learning experience gained out of the book.

Rating:
Summary: did I buy this?
Review: I had to buy this one for a class in school, to bad we never really used the book...
Mostly got the standard hand-out, and went along with our day.

Rating:
Summary: Society: The Basics, Seventh Edition
Review: Order was shipped on time, received in good condition and I would definately order from this user again.

Rating:
Summary: This is the worst book I've ever read!
Review: Some of his explanations are not correct. Get another book. Don't waste your monety.

Rating:
Summary: Disorganized, random, give me structure!
Review: This is a book that I adopted sight-unseen for an Internet-based introductory sociology course. I would call this one of the worst decisions I've made in more than 15 years of teaching sociology to first-year students. Perhaps this would be an acceptable option for some pedagogical approaches to the first-year course, but I would strongly urge a careful review of the book's content and approach before adopting it.

An examination of the contents should immediately indicate a terrible oversight: there is no separate chapter on social structure. I assume that we can understand this omission as reflecting an anti-structuralist bias on the part of Macionis, but it is difficult to say this with certainty. The overall organization of the book is so haphazard and random as to make it nearly impossible to discern any particular perspective on Macionis' part.

The lack of a specific discussion of social structure would not be problematic if Macionis had not chosen to address bits and pieces of social structure under other topics. The modes of economic subsistence are covered in at least three places, always out of context and never with any particular depth or understanding. Durkheim's mechanical and organic forms of solidarity appear only in the last chapter on social change. Toennies' concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft appear in each of the last two chapters, but without any mention of their connection to the topics of the respective chapters. So far as I can tell, there is no discussion anywhere of the similarities and differences among these related concepts.

Even the basic building blocks of social structure are mentioned in rather odd places. Macionis finally mentions the concept of social institutions - in passing - in a chapter on government and the economy, more than halfway through the 400-plus pages of this book. Roles and statuses find a place in the chapter on social interaction. The chapter on groups and organizations is not - as one would expect from someone who does not recognize the existence of social structure - about group dynamics as much as it is a half-baked attempt to reintroduce groups and organizations as building blocks of structure!

One possible advantage of Macionis' gross disorganization is that no one part (or even one paragraph!) of this book must be read in context. If forced to use this text, one could simply ask students to skip around and read discussions of related concepts in a logical order. It is also possible to get this book bundled with Seeing Ourselves, an introductory reader edited by Macionis and Nijole V. Benokraitis. Seeing Ourselves includes some of the standard introductory readings as well as a few innovative selections. It's not the best reader I've seen, but it is an acceptable one. Still, Seeing Ourselves is sold without this textbook.

One more caution: if you ask the publisher to send an examination copy of this book, you will end up with the "Annotated Instructor's Edition," which is not available for public sale. This means that students will have a slightly different version of the book. This is especially puzzling when one considers that the annotations don't annotate anything that's particularly connected to the content of the book.

Prentice-Hall has the nerve to charge students nearly $70 for this flimsy paperback because it comes bundled with a compact disc (which I couldn't get to work on my machine) and a "test bank" - a collection of poorly-written, canned test questions.

If you value your students' education and your own sanity, do not add this book to your SOC 101 reading list.


Rating:
Summary: This is the worst book I've ever read!
Review: This text is an excellent way for an introduction into the 3 primary sociological paradigms (Structural Functionalism, Social Conflict, and Symbolic Interationist.) It analyzes many aspects of society using the paradigms, and would be a perfect read for anyone whose interest in Sociology is budding.

Rating:
Summary: A Look at Paradigms
Review: This text is an excellent way for an introduction into the 3 primary sociological paradigms (Structural Functionalism, Social Conflict, and Symbolic Interationist.) It analyzes many aspects of society using the paradigms, and would be a perfect read for anyone whose interest in Sociology is budding.