"The present collection, a modest but useful contribution...is intended primarily as an aid to students writing papers for courses and examinations.... This is a worthy and successful project."
-"Contemporary Sociology
"In this unique collection, Thompson gives us much more than a book of quotable quotes.' He had found extraordinarily articulate statements of sociology's key ideas, and he has arranged them in an historically and theoretically coherent way. In so doing, he has managed to tell the story of sociology in a compact, fresh and compelling manner, and also to describe society itself."
-Jeffrey C. Alexander, University of California, Los Angeles