ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book includes autobiographical sketches by more than a dozen well-known American sociologists. It endeavors to bridge the distinction between a sociologist's autobiography and a sociological autobiography, as they offer reflections on person and work that are not only written by a sociologist but are also sociological in kind. The book presents intellectual autobiographies so that the usual restrictions of the specific form of a biography of the self, will apply, especially in terms of empirical adequacy criteria. Besides the explicit global and student-oriented focus, the book is also different from other works on sociological lives in as much as the autobiographical reviews presented, are highlighted in terms of the triple nexus: self society sociology. It highlights the evolving nature of sociological work.
