In the tradition of C. Wright Mills and Irving Goffman, this monograph brings current research and insight to a social science research area famed for its fissiparous polemical battles. Sperber surveys the field from Durkheim to the present and discusses both the origins of the Radical and neo-Marxist perspective as well as the mainstream, functionalist school of research. The work’s unique theoretical contribution lies in several areas: Sperber proposes that some of the diseases of modern civilization (Spanish flu epidemic of 1918,cancer,systemic lupus, heart disease, chronic depression among others) can be effectively explained,diagnosed and treated only when a systematic sociological perspective is brought to bear on them. Sperber also argues forcefully for a progressive, critical view of the field in language that is clear, forceful and persuasive.

“Not only thorough but a major addition to the field. Recommended for research libraries and institutions, especially centers of medical research. Does what American sociology has always done best---explain ourselves to ourselves with an almost religious intensity” Professor H.Richardson, Lampeter,Wales