Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR "The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I've ever read." --Jonathan Lethem   "If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future." --Ezra Klein (Vox) The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis. "One hopes that this book is read widely--that Robinson's audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination."―New York Review of Books "If there's any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity's efforts to try and turn the tide before it's too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year)   "Masterly." --New Yorker "[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year ... it's terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It's my book of the year." --Locus "Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." ―Bloomberg Green

Do you know how to initiate and facilitate productive dialogues about race in your classroom? Are you prepared to handle complex topics while keeping your students engaged? Inspired by Frederick Douglass's abolitionist call to action, "it is not light that is needed, but fire", author Matthew Kay demonstrates how to move beyond surface-level discussions and lead students through the most difficult race conversations. In Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom, Kay recognizes we often never graduate to the harder conversations, so he offers a method for getting them right, providing candid guidance on: How to recognize the difference between meaningful and inconsequential race conversations. How to build conversational "safe spaces," not merely declare them. How to infuse race conversations with urgency and purpose. How to thrive in the face of unexpected challenges. How administrators might equip teachers to thoughtfully engage in these conversations.   With the right blend of reflection and humility, Kay asserts teachers can make school one of the best venues for young people to discuss race.

This is the first part of Raymond Aron's landmark two-volume study of the sociological tradition—arguably the definitive work of its kind. More than a work of reconstruction, Aron's study is, at its deepest level, an engagement with the very question of modernity: how did the intellectual currents which emerged in the eighteenth century shape the modern political and philosophical order? With scrupulous fairness, Aron examines the thoughts and arguments of the major social thinkers to discern how they answered this question. Volume One explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology, represented by Montesquieu and Tocqueville; the Comtean tradition, anticipating Durkheim in its elevation of social unity and consensus; and the Marxists, who posited the struggle between classes and placed their faith in historical necessity. In his customary clear and penetrating prose, Aron argues that each of these schools offers its own theory of the diversity of societies and that'each is inspired both by moral convictions and by scientific hypotheses.'This Routledge Classics edition includes an introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian C. Anderson.

The war in Syria, now in its eighth year, continues to take its toll on the Syrian people. Over half of the population of Syria remains displaced {{as of September 2018), with more than 5.6 million registered as refugees outside of country and another 6.2 million displaced within Syria's borders. The internally displaced include two million school-age children, with less than half attending school. Another 739,000 Syrian children are out of school in five neighboring countries that host Syria's refugees. The loss of human capital is staggering, and it will create permanent hardship for generations of Syrians going forward.Despite the tragic prospects for renewed fighting in certain parts of the country, an overall reduction in armed conflict is possible going forward. However, international experience shows that the absence of fighting is rarely a singular trigger for return of the displaced people. Numerous other factors, including improved security and socio-economic conditions in origin states, access to property and assets, the availability of key services, and restitution in home areas play important roles in shaping the scale and composition of returns. Overall, refugees have their own calculus of return that considers all these factors and assesses available options.This study sheds light on the "mobility calculus" of Syrian refugees. While dismissing any policies that imply wrongful practices involving forced repatriation, the study analyzes factors that may be considered by refugees in their own decision to relocate. By doing so, it aims to provide a fact-based and transparent framework to support a concerted dialogue among concerned parties.

Embarking from a model of social capital hinging upon four social structures--work, family, social networks, and voluntary associations--Brian Jones empirically examines the widespread claims that American society is becoming less sociable, trusting, and cooperative. Breaking down datasets drawn from the General Social Survey (conducted 27 times from 1972 to 2008), Social Capital in American Life depicts the social values drawn from the four established social structures, as well as their interrelationships, their determinants, and ultimately their social capital, through a series of statistical and econometric methods. This rigorous, empirically driven analysis reveals how American society both confirms and repudiates fears about decreased cooperation given different cases and parameters. 

This book examines the social networks of international students, exploring the ways in which they experience social support and the role of the continuously evolving media landscape in their experiences of mobility. Drawing on survey data collected from over 250 respondents around the world, Rajee Kanagavel offers a social network analysis of transnational social formations to investigate the flow of social support through media channels, shedding light on how co-presence is no longer influenced by geographical distance.   Kanagavel analyses the ways in which communication technologies are transforming the way we build and maintain relationships, and our ability to receive or give support across distance. As such, the book will be useful to scholars and students of sociology and media studies, particularly those with an interest in transnationalism, new media, social support and international student mobility.

Latin American and Latinx Philosophy: A Collaborative Introduction is a beginner's guide to canonical texts in Latin American and Latinx philosophy, providing the non-specialist with necessary historical and philosophical context, and demonstrating their contemporary relevance. It is written in jargon-free prose for students and professors who are interested in the subject, but who don't know where to begin. Each of the twelve chapters, written by a leading scholar in the field, examines influential texts that are readily available in English and introduces the reader to a period, topic, movement, or school that taken together provide a broad overview of the history, nature, scope, and value of Latin American and Latinx philosophy. Although this volume is primarily intended for the reader without a background in the Latin American and Latinx tradition, specialists will also benefit from its many novelties, including an introduction to Aztec ethics; a critique of "the Latino threat" narrative; the legacy of Latin American philosophy in the Chicano movement; an overview of Mexican existentialism, Liberation philosophy, and Latin American and Latinx feminisms; a philosophical critique of indigenism; a study of Latinx contributions to the philosophy of immigration; and an examination of the intersection of race and gender in Latinx identity.