One of the most important sociology books

books:

	• Invitation To Sociology (Pelican) Berger Peter L. Penguin Books Ltd, 1970 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Uncomplete review from some years back

Each new sociology student must read this book during his or her first year into the discipline, and each sociologist must read this book (or the notes he made in the past about it) once every couple years. Peter Berger wrote one of the most compelling treatises into a social science, bridging theme with emotion, intellectual associations, nice metaphors and analogies and a wealth of humor.

The first chapter ("Sociology as an individual pastime") stands alone as an excellent introduction to the science of society. Berger invites us here to a party where the sociologist meets with a plethora of intellectuals and finally succeeds to transcend as a different and respectable member of the scientific community. If something, this chapter alone is worth the reading of the book. Shoots at the American academy coherent with Berger's (and ours) admiration for Thosrtein Veblen are combined with an un-dissimulated hate for all complete non-critical systems of belief, including organized religion, 20th Century communism, free-market capitalism and psychoanalysis. The tendencies known in the field at the start of the sixties are only deepened now, and so the critical words Berger throws at statistical reductionism are completely current: "in science as in love a concentration on technique is quite likely to lead to impotence" [p.13]. What there isn't to love in that?

At the same time Berger is preoccupied to maintain values and beliefs far from the scientific logic of a social science. How you can be a humanist if your values must be maintained outside of your field of competence? Well, sociology teaches us about the relativity of institutions. Freedom is considered to be inscrutable to science, but given the sociological perspective, it can be reached. So sociological thought is indispensable for the possibility of a free existence, and so becomes humanist in front of the supposedly unbreakable laws of social reality. Given that this is only a "perspective", this knowledge about society could also be used against or fellow men, and Berger is completely aware of that in an epoch so close to the age of totalitarism.

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not bad

book was in pretty good condition..the front cover did appear to have what looked like dry boogers on it though but overall it was in good shape and cheap too

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Great Sociology

A great, down-to-earth approach to Sociology. A must read for all Intro to Sociology college students.

Great intro!

I teach a course in the sociology of education to master's students from a broad range of majors. Few if any have been introduced to sociology as a discipline that might have value, even changing the way they view the world.

Berger's text, though now in print for forty-five years, remains the best introductory text available. The first five chapters are priceless, demonstrating that not all of human behavior can be reduced to psychology or social psychology or strength of will, but that institutions -- structured social practices -- are at work at all levels, determining not just what we do but who we are, as well.

As with all his work, Berger's prose style is impeccable: easy to read but not dumbed-down. He writes like the cosmopolitan intellectual that he is, and students appreciate his sophistication. (With a bit of forewarning, they forgive him his archaic references to computer punch cards and other anachronisms.)

After students have read Invitation to Sociology, they are less likely to engage in victim-blaming, both for others and for themselves. They acknowledge instead that social contexts vary in ways that demonstrably provide advantages to some while diminishing the prospects of others. Social determinism becomes real, something that they can see for themselves.

Remarkably, some are able to see that free will may be a convenient fiction, something we use to get through the day in a way that makes the world seem sensible. Social determinism, however, works its will whether we recognize it or not.

Let's hope this book never goes out of print.

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One of the most important sociology books

It wasn't until after I majored in sociology that I actually got around to reading the works of Perter L. Berger, although I had studied many works citing his, and Thomas Luckmann. This book is in my opinion the very best introduction to sociology I have read. Berger has a unique ability to articulate the fundamentals of sociology, the "sociological perspective" that has often been misunderstood and underappreciated in the world of the social sciences. This book is important to read by anyone in the social science fields, either sociology, psychology etc. Even if you have studied sociology extensively already, this book is still worth reading. Berger's dialectic theory of social reality construction is explicated, and also he discusses implications like existentialism of Sartre and other philosophical issues. A great book overall!! I also suggest his other books too, they are all great!

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