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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 15 page analysis of the book Illuminating Social Life edited by Peter Kivisto. In assembling this brilliant collection of essays, the intent of Peter Kivisto is to demonstrate the practical application of social theories to understanding societal structures and situations. Ten chapters highlight ten sociological theories and are briefly discussed. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
15 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_90social.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
four men who are the most prominent in the early history of sociology: Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. Chapter 1: Georg Simmel This discussion
of Simmel begins with a brief biographical description that emphasizes the importance of Simmels work to early sociology. Simmel summed up his basic outlook by arguing that society consists of
"a web of patterned interactions, and that it is the task of sociology to study the forms of these interactions as they occur and reoccur in diverse historical periods and
cultural settings" (Staudenmeier 8). Simmel felt that the particular contents of a situation?that is, the concrete examples of history?were of interest to the sociologist only in how they determined the
more general patterns and forms of interaction and types of interaction (Staudenmeier 8). To illustrate this point, Staudenmeier picks out one particular aspect of human society?in this case, the use
of alcoholic beverages. Simmel postulated that social interaction involved a social geometry that encompassed numbers, distance, and symmetry of interactions that could not be explain by reductionism (Staudenmeier 10).
This becomes clear when Simmels logic is applied to alcohol-related conflict in the nineteenth century. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, black and white small farmers and laborers were
united on a political stand that called for economic reform. African-Americans were divided on their beliefs relative to alcoholic beverages, just as whites were; however, despite evidence to the contrary,
the elites of the period were able to tap into racist beliefs and convinced white populations that drunken freed slavers were terrorizing good citizens (Staudenmeier 10). When several antialcohol referendums
were voted down in the South, the white elite blamed the black vote. They used this as a wedge to divide the political coalition of small white and black farmers.
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