Great Readings in Sociology
A curated collection of field-defining books, landmark empirical papers, and transformative monographs in sociology.
- Sociological Theory & Foundations
- Social Stratification, Class & Urban Inequality
- Race, Gender & Intersectionality
- Institutions, Deviance & Social Control
- Economy, Organizations & Social Networks
- Health, Technology & Digital Society
Sociological Theory & Foundations
| Title | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism | Max Weber |
| The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life | Erving Goffman |
| The Sociological Imagination | C. Wright Mills |
| Economy and Society | Max Weber |
| The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge | Peter L. Berger & Thomas Luckmann |
| Suicide: A Study in Sociology | Émile Durkheim |
Social Stratification, Class & Urban Inequality
| Title | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste | Pierre Bourdieu |
| American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass | Douglas S. Massey & Nancy A. Denton |
| Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City | Matthew Desmond |
| The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy | William Julius Wilson |
| Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum | William Foote Whyte |
Race, Gender & Intersectionality
| Title | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| The Souls of Black Folk | W.E.B. Du Bois |
| Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics | Kimberlé Crenshaw |
| Black Skin, White Masks | Frantz Fanon |
| Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity | Judith Butler |
| Masculinities | R.W. Connell |
| Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment | Patricia Hill Collins |
Institutions, Deviance & Social Control
| Title | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates | Erving Goffman |
| Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison | Michel Foucault |
| Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance | Howard S. Becker |
| The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness | Michelle Alexander |
Economy, Organizations & Social Networks
| Title | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| "The Strength of Weak Ties" (American Journal of Sociology) [unlinked] | Mark S. Granovetter |
| "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields" (American Sociological Review) [unlinked] | Paul J. DiMaggio & Walter W. Powell |
| The Purchase of Intimacy | Viviana A. Zelizer |
| Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992 | Charles Tilly |
Health, Technology & Digital Society
| Title | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| "Social Conditions As Fundamental Causes of Disease" (Journal of Health and Social Behavior) [unlinked] | Bruce G. Link & Jo C. Phelan |
| Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code | Ruha Benjamin |
| The Age of Surveillance Capitalism | Shoshana Zuboff |
| Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age | Matthew J. Salganik |