Rating: 
Summary: For the ages!
Review: Ever wonder what makes us what we are as individuals? Ever wonder what makes society what it is as a whole? This book is for you! One of the main ideas here is that society is built by a group of people (a nation, a state, a political party, a family, etc.) by people but becomes a thing that is seen by people as being reified. Therefore, people look at society as if it were like a brick wall, i.e. hard, unmovable, etc.What gets people to the point of seeing the world as a unchangeable whole, almost like nature itself? The most important answer is that we're being socialized from our first day of existence. This socialization comes from our family, friends, teachers, everyone - even the people we meet and see everyday and never think about! They tell us who we are, where we are, what we are, what we do, who they are, what everything is, etc. Its absolutely amazing to think that our view of the world is what it is mostly because of our society, but that's the idea here. Society is constantly being constructed and reconstructed, enforced and reenforced, by people all the time. A huge part of the reason for this is institutionalization. This means that a certain type of person does certain acts, in just such a way, in the right time of their lives, with the right education level, etc. This book has so many critical things to say about the world we live in. However, best of all in my opinion, the ideas are timeless. The topics discussed in this book have been with us since the beginning of civilization and seemingly always will be. This isn't a book about modern times, it is a book about all times.
Rating: 
Summary: Impenetrable, abstruse, deliberately obfuscated
Review: Having read Beger's "Invitation to Sociology" I felt sufficiently enthused and bought his "Construction of Reality". Oh boy. Was that an error on my part! Here, Berger is nearly impenetrable from the very beginning and throughout, the text structure is mind boggling (it's never quite clear what the author is talking about, and *why* he addresses what he addresses, and why here and not some other place; a profusion of very slippery expressions (Something or other "is not empirically available" for example; seems like this "empirically available" is one of his favourite expressions, and it *is* sort of glibly striking, but what exactly does it mean? Many occurrences of such stuff... a lot of ponderous latinizing -- "ipso facto", "sui generis", "mutatis mutandis", someone "qua" something, etc. -- annoying and uncalled for; it is highly reminiscent of the logorrheaic prolixity typical of psychoanalytic writing of the same time (60s) or perhaps an imitation of translated philosophical German. All Berger's writing here (as everywhere else) is purely expository, there is no shade of argument present anywhere; if something is less than self-evident to you, that's your problem, I suppose. While "The Invitation..." itself (first five chapters, that is) was not bad, "The Construction of Reality..." is just plain gobbledegook, purposely (I suspect) rendered incomprehensible in order to make it look profound. And even when you do -- at the cost of a huge mental effort, highlighting, paraphrazing, and drawing lines and circles on the pages -- uncover some vague semblance of a possible meaning, it invariably turns out either trivial or highly questionable. What's interesting is that, following Berger's bibliography, I moved on to Weber, and turns out, sociology CAN be written logically, concisely, and clearly. What a pleasing surprise.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent - thorough and well-focused
Review: I am surprised that a book this old and this thought-provoking isn't more widely-known and cited in discussions concerning the world of thought and ideas. After reading it, I'm tempted to describe it as "this is where the universe begins" because for all practical purposes, it does! Berger and Luckman are very successful at presenting a scholarly account on the theory of knowledge in a (relatively) easy to comprehend and digest manner. Anyone who's read Pirsig's "Lila" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance" will find this work just as interesting *and* an easier read!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent - thorough and well-focused
Review: I am surprised that a book this old and this thought-provoking isn't more widely-known and cited in discussions concerning the world of thought and ideas. After reading it, I'm tempted to describe it as "this is where the universe begins" because for all practical purposes, it does! Berger and Luckman are very successful at presenting a scholarly account on the theory of knowledge in a (relatively) easy to comprehend and digest manner. Anyone who's read Pirsig's "Lila" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance" will find this work just as interesting *and* an easier read!
Rating:
Summary: Solid...fascinating...an overlooked classic.
Review: I enjoy these dense books of ideas, but rarely come away from them as fulfilled and enlightened as I came away from this one. Building on the premise that most (if not all)of the knowledge we have, both objective and subjective, comes from the society we live in, the authors examine how knowledge forms and how it is maintained and modified by the institutions that embody it and individuals who embrace it. It gives a scientific grounding to the symbiotic relationship between an individual and his or her community. The book is scholarly, but accessable, with frequent commonplace examples to shed light on the ideas. And it is delightfully brief and to the point, with laudably little of philosophical tedium and academic backbiting that often weighs down such works
Rating:
Summary: Solid...fascinating...an overlooked classic.
Review: I enjoy these dense books of ideas, but rarely come away from them as fulfilled and enlightened as I came away from this one. Building on the premise that most (if not all)of the knowledge we have, both objective and subjective, comes from the society we live in, the authors examine how knowledge forms and how it is maintained and modified by the institutions that embody it and individuals who embrace it. It gives a scientific grounding to the symbiotic relationship between an individual and his or her community. The book is scholarly, but accessable, with frequent commonplace examples to shed light on the ideas. And it is delightfully brief and to the point, with laudably little of philosophical tedium and academic backbiting that often weighs down such works
Rating:
Summary: We need more stars for this one!
Review: I would like to add my voice to those who list this book as among the most important they have read. As for many, this book marked a turning point in my college education. Berger's "Invitation to Sociology" was a required text for my Intro to Soc course but that book led me to Construction. I was a philosophy major and reading about Hegel at the time. The coincidence of reading Hegel and Berger turned on a light for me. They both explained one another. Hegel was laying much of the ground work (and there are lots of excellent books that explain why that is) but Hegel is notoriously difficult. Berger's contemporary vocabulary opened my eyes to a successful interpretation of Hegel. Reading Berger was contemporary English instead of translated early 19th century German. At least it was contemporary for me at the time (early 70s). Today there are many phrases students will recognize as politically incorrect -- Berger was writing for a male academic audience. This is a shame since students do find it difficult and the additional discovery of sexist language adds insult to what may very well be viewed as injury. This book will enter a student into reflective thinking stage 6 and so causes all the depressing introspection that will go with that among the bright students. Which brings up a dilemma. Hegel was very positive. Rorty suggests that what he did was replace knowledge with hope. Agreed! While Berger is not clearly negative, there is no positive emphasis. As a result I always feel an obligation to encourage a positive approach to the powerfulness of this world view. My collection of Berger books occupies a highly esteemed shelf in my library.
Rating:
Summary: The most valuable book of my college education
Review: It was over twenty years ago that I read this book and it was for a college class specifically based on the concepts of this book. If I ever question the value of my college education, it always comes down to this one class and one book as being of most value. It's influence has stayed with me throughout my life. I was just doing a search on books by Thomas Berger and this popped up in the list and I had to add my two cents. So while I'm at it, let me thank Pat Fleming, my college instructor, wherever she may be, for having the insight to introduce us to this book!
Rating:
Summary: What You Know Depends on Where You Sit
Review: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge is one of the most significant books of social science ever written - ranking with and beyond Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Emile Durkheim's Suicide, and more recently Walter Truett Anderson's more popularized take off of it entitled Reality Isn't What It Use To Be (1990). It has spawned a whole new cross-disciplinary school of social science - social constructionism. Originally written in 1967, the book was way ahead of its time with what now is called "postmodernism;" although neither of the author's views necessarily fit this term. In the arts and humanities, it resonates with the philosophy of 17th century Italian philosopher Giambatista Vico's book New Science ("the true and the made are convertible"), with the plays of Italian Luigi Pirandello (Right You Are If You Say You Are and Six Stories in Search of an Author), and with novelists Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Divine Inquisitor) and Robert Musil (A Man Without Qualities). The sociology of knowledge a la Berger and Luckmann is not about the history of ideas, the economic origin of ideologies, the social process of education, the study of intellectuals, religious Gnostics, or secret societies, or social theories per se. Rather, the intriguing concern of the authors is what they call everyday knowledge or common sense knowledge that is constructed at different levels of society all the way from language, to family history and memories, to children's folk tales, proverbs, and legends, to workplace and professional ideologies, to formal theories and paradigms, and finally to what they call symbolic universes or over-arching world views. Again, this is reminiscent of Vico who wrote: "common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race." To Berger and Luckmann reality (that which we can't wish away) is unknowable except through the prism of experience as interpreted through social enclaves or what they call plausibility structures. Berger and Luckmann base their work on a set of fundamental propositions: (1) Man's consciousness is determined by his social being or by his "seat in life." (2) Knowledge must always be from a certain position or social location. (3) "What is truth on one side of the Pyrenees (mountains) is error on the other" (Blaise Pascal). (4) Consider social facts or institutions as things (Emile Durkheim). And (5) the sociology of knowledge must concern itself with everything that passes for knowledge in society. Berger and Luckmann proceed from these propositions to discuss society as objective reality and society as subjective reality. They discuss three self-validating "moments" that construct our knowledge of reality: (1) externalization or projection (society as a human product); (2) objectivation or reification (society as objective reality); and (3) internalization and role alternation (man is a social product). The authors maintain that social institutions are perpetually precarious because they are humanly constructed, not biologically given. Human culture, produced by institutions, replaces instincts so well that culture is taken for granted as the same as our physical nature. As Berger and Luckmann put it: "man's relationship to his environment is characterized by world-openness." The authors don't mean that man is plastic, but that he is moldable within unspecific biological constraints. Berger and Luckmann synthesize the views of a wide range of philosophers and social thinkers into an original product, in true constructionist fashion. But their systematic "theory" is not totalistic or totalitarian as is the theoretical systems of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, revolutionary thinker Karl Marx, the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin, or any other "know it all" system. Their approach reminds one of the classic parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant. Each blind man finds that they are touching or experiencing different parts of the body of the elephant and thus are led to think that the elephant is thin like a tail, or flexible like the trunk, or round and solid like its leg, or immovable like its torso. Only with Berger and Luckmann's approach the blind men may find that the elephant is hollow or man-made as in the fictional character of the wizard in the children's story of the Wizard of Oz. To Berger and Luckmann the world is a Hollywood stage front, a Russian Potemkin Village, but not a delusion. The authors explain that the next generation forgets, or is led to believe, that the social world is given when it was produced or manufactured. But it isn't manufactured mechanistically but is dialectically or interactively produced. The social order can be maintained by various techniques including intimidation, propaganda, mystification, or the manipulation of symbols (symbolic action). However, man is not a passive, but a reactionary creature that will not merely swallow social reality whole but will also often try and alter it. As the authors state man produces society, society becomes an objective, coercive, and reified (as in deified) reality, and, in turn, man becomes a social product of his own creation. Man experiences alienation when he forgets he created society or when he is powerless to control what he created. Man experiences what is called anomie when social worldviews no longer reflect reality. Berger and Luckmann's book is highly readable but the terminology may be foreign at first and thus intimidating for some. If one wants to read a popularized version, Walter Truett Anderson's Reality Isn't What It Used to Be may leave one thirsting to read Berger and Luckmann's seminal book as well. Other books to explore might be Jodi O'Brien and Peter Kollock, The Production of Reality; William G. Roy, Making Societies; Walter Truett Anderson's sequel The Truth About the Truth; and Peter Berger's book on the social construction of sacred religious knowledge entitled The Sacred Canopy. And for a "light" introduction one might read Peter Berger's other classic entitled An Invitation to Sociology. But if you like reading a book that has depth of thought and classic understandings, don't miss reading Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality first hand.
Rating:
Summary: Impleminable, abstooth, delicibly ofcusblated
Review: This book is an outstanding classic in theoretical, non-empirical Sociology of Knowledge - perhaps the ONLY real classic in that field. Berger and Luckmann present a beautifully concise description of how face-to-face communication with one's peers and community (or in B&G's terms, one's "plausibility structure") provides specific meaningful content to sense-percieved reality. The book proceeds in stages of complexity, beginning with the perception of self, and then a community of two, then three (where occurs for instance the institution of "parenthood", perceived to exist independently from the existence of parents) and so forth. Along the way B&G explain in a series of very shrewd examples, how a community sharing a similar internalized "subjective universe" confer normative dignity and stability onto it. Also provided by a society are "therapeutic" systems to ensure "universe maintenance", thus decreasing the chances for conversion from one worldview to another (alternation) in the event of anomaly. Maybe my favorite portion of this book is B&G's exposition of what occurs in an individual whose subjective universe is abandoned in favor of a new one: one's pre-conversion biography is subsumed (nihilated) in the new, post-conversion worldview. One mis-remembers one's pre-conversion biography in order to facilitate the new worldview's ability to "explain" the old one. Damn good stuff!
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