Every undergraduate course in sociology focuses on Marx, Durkheim and Weber, yet students often find their first contact with these writers to be a difficult experience: the language of these theorists is complicated and forbidding. This book provides a clear guide to their key ideas.

Ken Morrison provides a lucid and reliable guide to their key ideas, not only explaining their meaning but also locating them in their philosophical and historical context. The student therefore gains an immediate understanding of both the roots and contemporary relevance of the concepts and how they relate to the classical tradition.

The book also includes a helpful alphabetical concept glossary. This is organized in three sections and contains over 150 entries on the most difficult terms used by each writer, each one outlining both its historical origin and its various meanings.