What is the nature of order? What is the nature of self? What is the inextricable link among individuals, social interaction, culture and society? These questions have fascinated and befuddled social scientists for a long time. Loren Demerath’s Explaining Culture: The Social Pursuit of Subjective Order offers remarkably coherent and highly persuasive answers to these questions and does so by brilliantly merging ... Read moreinsights from an array of subfields in sociology—among them, sociology of emotion, social psychology, social organization, and culture. This book will be of great interest to anyone studying these areas and to social scientists who want to read a compelling articulation of the connection between individuals and society.
Brian Powell, Indiana University Not ironically, the topics explored in this masterfully conceived volume are precisely what make this work invaluable: Meaningfulness, conceptual power, uniqueness, verbal articulation. Few in our field have that rare ability to wrap a superior mind around the most difficult and yet essential matters of being in the world, such as the subjective reading of society and culture. Loren Demerath appears to be one of the special ones. Explaining Culture is a gem of a book.
Thomas J. Cottle Show Less