Preface

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book argues that sociologists and other students of society have an obligation, as citizens, to present scholarly findings in a format which will help the decision-makers of society to make wise decisions. Some historians, at least, have long acted on sociological assumptions —that is, they have hypothesized that where patterns of social relationships, most particularly of relations of power, are similar, the course of events is likely also to be similar. Sociologists operate on the fundamental axiom that social behavior is not random but ordered, that given similar structural situations history will indeed repeat itself. Social scientists of every persuasion have attempted to isolate the causes of prejudice and discrimination, social phenomena intimately related to expressions of conflict and violence. The response of many of the sociologists was an indication of their need to segregate their scholarly activity from the "action" of the real world.