ABSTRACT
In some ways this is a very personal book; it represents my own views as to who would have interesting things to say on the problems currently fac ing the discipline of sociology and as to which already published articles dealing with this topic were worth reprinting. Eight of the chapters in this book were originally published in 1994 as a special issue of Sociological Forum, the journal of the Eastern Sociological Society, of which I was editor at the time. These are the chapters by S. Cole, Collins, Davis, Lipset, Molotch, Rule, the Simpsons, and Stinchcombe. One chapter, that by Zald, was an invited contribution to a follow-up discussion of the special issue appearing in the same journal. Two of the chapters, those by M. Cole and Ellis and Bochner are original essays which I commissioned for this book. The other chapters, those by Becker and Rau, Berger, Felson, Henry, and Huber were previously published articles. The essay by Henry was part of a special issue of Sociological Forum devoted to the views of African Ameri can sociologists on the current state of sociology which I commissioned when I was editor. The Huber essay was the Centennial Essay published in the American Journal o f Sociology (AJS) in 1995. There were other people whom I asked to contribute to both the special issue and this volume who declined.
