Toward an American Sociology: Questioning the European Construct

(Hardback)

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Description

The theories behind contemporary sociology were imported from Europe and first taught in American colleges in the late 1880s. Rooted in the soil of late feudal society, the received theories of current academic sociology simply cannot flourish in the democratic environment of modern America. This volume represents the author's effort to rethink the way sociologists approach both their discipline and the study of society and culture in the United States. The end product of this exercise is a distinctly American sociology.

Reviews

[M]any readers will agree with Morgan's call for "a new sociology" that "proposes to return to the discipline the natural interest of students and the general public," and they may also support his "vernacular" approach. Such proposals may help to sustain a living tradition that cherishes the accomplishments of earlier scholars while transcending them through the creative exercise of the sociological imagination.-Social Forces
"Many readers will agree with Morgan's call for "a new sociology" that "proposes to return to the discipline the natural interest of students and the general public," and they may also support his "vernacular" approach. Such proposals may help to sustain a living tradition that cherishes the accomplishments of earlier scholars while transcending them through the creative exercise of the sociological imagination."-Social Forces
"[M]any readers will agree with Morgan's call for "a new sociology" that "proposes to return to the discipline the natural interest of students and the general public," and they may also support his "vernacular" approach. Such proposals may help to sustain a living tradition that cherishes the accomplishments of earlier scholars while transcending them through the creative exercise of the sociological imagination."-Social Forces

Author Bio

GORDON D. MORGAN is Professor of Sociology at the University of Arkansas. He has studied sociology for over forty years concentrating on ghettos, educational sociology, prisons, the Caribbean, and Africa.