Concepts of Social Stratification European and American Models

This book looks at how sociological concepts that were first invented and applied to describe social inequality in Europe were also used to understand and explain inequality in the US. Hess analyzes changing uses of concepts and measurements of social inequality by looking at how some of the most prominent American sociologists have tried to conceptualize their own society while at the same time addressing the complex relationship between an assumed political equality and de facto social inequality.

Andreas Hess is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wales, Bangor.

Introduction: Why Study the Semantics of Social Stratification? * Karl Marx's Critique of Political Economy * Political Economy as Sociology--Max Weber * Alexis de Tocqueville's Political Sociology * In dispraise of Economics--Thorstein Veblen * The City and Human Ecology: The Urban Sociology of the Chicago School--Robert Park and William Burgess * The Origins of Cultural and community Studies: Robert and Helen Lynd's Anatomy of Middletown * The Political Sociology of C. Wright Mills: An Anatomy of the American Power Structure * Dissecting the "Fine Distinctions" in American's System of Social Stratification--Richard Sennett and Johnathan Cobb * Maintaining the Equilibrium of Freedom and Order: Talcott Parsons' Resuscitation of Functionalism * From "Black Nation" and "Black Bourgeoisie" to "Urban Underclass"-The Sociology of African American Communities--W.E.B. Du Bois, Franklin E. Frazier and William J. Wilson * Back to the Future: Mike Davis' and Erik Olin Wright's Marxist Interpretations of Class Struggle in the U.S. * Tocqueville Revisited: American Exceptionalism in the Political Sociology of Seymour Martin Lipset * Epilogue: The Semantics of Social Stratification
Introduction: Why Study the Semantics of Social Stratification? * Karl Marx's Critique of Political Economy * Political Economy as Sociology--Max Weber * Alexis de Tocqueville's Political Sociology * In dispraise of Economics--Thorstein Veblen * The City and Human Ecology: The Urban Sociology of the Chicago School--Robert Park and William Burgess * The Origins of Cultural and community Studies: Robert and Helen Lynd's Anatomy of Middletown * The Political Sociology of C. Wright Mills: An Anatomy of the American Power Structure * Dissecting the "Fine Distinctions" in American's System of Social Stratification--Richard Sennett and Johnathan Cobb * Maintaining the Equilibrium of Freedom and Order: Talcott Parsons' Resuscitation of Functionalism * From "Black Nation" and "Black Bourgeoisie" to "Urban Underclass"-The Sociology of African American Communities--W.E.B. Du Bois, Franklin E. Frazier and William J. Wilson * Back to the Future: Mike Davis' and Erik Olin Wright's Marxist Interpretations of Class Struggle in the U.S. * Tocqueville Revisited: American Exceptionalism in the Political Sociology of Seymour Martin Lipset * Epilogue: The Semantics of Social Stratification