This text expounds the fundamental ideas of classical sociological theory by examining the body of work in the context of the lives and times of the theorists who developed it: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and George H. Mead. Theory is not conveyed as a set of abstract and inherently difficult ideas but is shown to be a personal response to real social issues that can be understood historically and applied across time to contemporary social life.