Sociology of Religion, Fourth Edition introduces students to the nature and function of religious institutions and practices while asking sociological questions about the changing role of religion in today's “post-traditional” world. Broken into three parts, the book opens with the basics of religious history and a review of key theories for its study. Part II, “Religion and Social Differentiation,” examines the intersections of ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality with spiritu...

This book examines current policy discussions around the migration-development nexus and subjects them to rigorous conceptual and empirical criticism through a transnational lens, placing the current re-discovery of migrants as agents of development nexus into theoretical and historical perspective.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to Jeffrey C. Alexander’s Civil Sphere Theory (CST). It reconstructs the development and key features of this theory and explains why it offers an original and compelling way of thinking about civil society.The book reveals the ways in which the various components of CST come together to offer an illuminating framework for making sense of the complexities, ambiguities, and tensions inherent in modern democracies located in highly diff...

A significant addition to the growing body of literature on citizenship, this wide-ranging overview focuses on the importance, and changing nature, of citizenship. It introduces the varied discourses and theories that have arisen in recent years, and looks toward future scholarship in the field.Offers an analytical assessment of the various thematic discourses and provides guidance in pulling together those discrete themes into a larger, more comprehensive fr...

As the best single-source collection of classic and contemporary readings on the subject, this anthology will be a valuable reference to scholars of immigration, race and ethnicity, national identity, and the history of ideas, and indispensable for courses in history and the social sciences dealing with these topics.' Ruben G. Rumbaut, co-author of Immigrant America: A Portrait and Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation Societies today are increasingly characterized by thei...

This concise book provides readers with a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of the key issues and varied strands of research relating to immigration and religion that have been produced during the past two decades.Religion, once a neglected topic in migration studies, is today seen as a crucially important aspect of the immigrant experience. For some - particularly those focusing on religion in North America - religion has been portrayed as a vital resource for many im...

Race and ethnicity have shaped the social, cultural and political character of much of the world, and remain an important influence on contemporary life in the 21st Century. Race and Ethnicity: The Basics is an accessible introduction to these potent forces. Topics covered include:The forms and dynamics of racial and ethnic relationsThe dynamics of inequalityThe relationship between prejudice and discriminationEthnic conflictMo...

The most up-to-date analysis of today’s immigration issuesAs the authors state in Chapter 1, "the movement of people across national borders represents one of the most vivid dramas of social reality in the contemporary world." This comparative text examines contemporary immigration across the globe, focusing on 20 major nations. Noted scholars Peter Kivisto and Thomas Faist introduce students to important topics of inquiry at the heart of the field, includ...

The purpose of this proposed addition to the Anthem Companions series is to add another title to a growing list of well-received publications (including the author’s prior contribution on Robert E. Park). In so doing, the goal is to reconnect some scholars to Riesman’s legacy and to introduce him to others. Specifically, the book consists of an editor’s introduction and seven contributed chapters.

This ambitious two-volume handbook of social theory consists of forty original contributions. The researchers take stock of the state of social theory and its relationship to the canon, exploring such topics as the nature, purpose, and meaning of social theory; the significance of the classics; the impact of specific individual and theory schools; and more. Both volumes reflect a mixture of what intellectual historian Morton White distinguished as the 'annalist of ideas' and the 'analyst o...

Although many contemporary scholars have deepened our understanding of civil society through critiquing the limits of civil society discourse or seeking to offer empirical analyses of existing civil societies, none have attempted anything as bold or original as Jeffrey C. Alexander's 2006 book, The Civil Sphere. While consciously building on a three-centuries-long tradition of thought on the subject, Alexander has broken new ground by articulating a detailed theoretical framework ...

The Anthem Companion to Robert Park comes to terms with Robert Park’s legacy. This companion focuses largely on the work rather than the man, a major figure in American sociology during the first half of the past century, and encourages readers to consider the virtue of rethinking—and rereading—the much maligned and frequently misunderstood Park. Despite the fact that he wrote with exemplary clarity, Park’s work has often been ignored by contemporary sociologists. The contributions in this...