Mitford's funny and unforgiving book is the best memento mori we are likely to get. It should be updated and reissued each decade for our spiritual health.-- The New York Review of Books
Only the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitford could turn an exposé of the American funeral industry into a book that is at once deadly serious and side-splittingly funny. When first published in 1963 this landmark of investigative journalism became a runaway bestseller and resulted in legislation to protect grieving families from the unscrupulous sales practices of those in "the dismal trade."
Just before her death in 1996, Mitford thoroughly revised and updated her classic study. The American Way of Death Revisited confronts new trends, including the success of the profession's lobbyists in Washington, inflated cremation costs, the telemarketing of pay-in-advance graves, and the effects of monopolies in a death-care industry now dominated by multinational corporations. With its hard-nosed consumer activism and a satiric vision out of Evelyn Waugh's novel The Loved One , The American Way of Death Revisited will not fail to inform, delight, and disturb.
"Brilliant--hilarious--A must-read for anyone planning to throw a funeral in their lifetime."-- New York Post
"Witty and penetrating--it speaks the truth."-- The Washington Post

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, the author follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live. The author also wrote "Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland".

《音乐社会学：音乐的理性基础与社会学基础》是引进的一本音乐社会学著作，为音乐社会学学科的奠基之作。分为七章，依次从以下四个方面进行论证：与旋律有关的和声检验、与其他地区比较的西方音乐音阶体制研究、对解决音乐体系中的多音性和多响性方案的评论、检验乐器作为音乐理性化载体的角色。

An indispensable introduction to this timely topic.
Nationalism is one of the most pressing of global problems, exacerbating ethnic conflicts and increasing the likelihood of war. It is also basic to defining the rights of democratic citizenship, and can be a source of inspiration and social solidarity. In this fascinating overview, Craig Calhoun considers nationalism’s diverse manifestations, its history, and its relationship to imperialism and colonialism.
A way of conceiving identities that is fundamental to the modern world, nationalism is distinct from kinship and ethnicity. It is an international discourse that shapes domestic politics and relations between states. Drawing on examples ranging from Eritrea, the former Yugoslavia, and China to France and Germany, Calhoun clarifies the ways national boundaries and identities have become central to the modern era, how they relate to the development of state power, and how a host of social movements and government policy makers try to make use of them. Calhoun also challenges attempts to “debunk” nationalism that fail to grasp why it has such power and centrality in modern life.

"AriA]s traces Western man's attitudes toward mortality from the early medieval conception of death as the familiar collective destiny of the human race to the modern tendency, so pronounced in industrial societies, to hide death as if it were an embarrassing family secret." -- Newsweek

Received wisdom suggests that social organizations (such as non-government organizations, NGOs) have the power to upend the political status quo. However, in many authoritarian contexts, such as China, NGO emergence has not resulted in this expected regime change. In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt shows how NGOs adapt to the changing interests of central and local governments, working in service of the state to address social problems. In doing so, the nature of NGO emergence in China effectively strengthens the state, rather than weakens it. This book offers a groundbreaking comparative analysis of Chinese social organizations across the country in three different issue areas: environmental protection, HIV/AIDS prevention, and gay and lesbian rights. It suggests a new way of thinking about state-society relations in authoritarian countries, one that is distinctly co-dependent in nature: governments require the assistance of NGOs to govern while NGOs need governments to extend political, economic, and personal opportunities to exist.

Non-democratic states such as China and Vietnam are often assumed to lack functioning civil societies. In spite of apparent restrictions, the network members Andrew Wells-Dang studies actively create informal pathways for advocacy through cross-sectoral social networks. This book brings a fresh, original approach to understand social action through the conceptual lens of informal environmental and health networks. Using personal relationships, media allies, and new technologies, activist networks are transforming public discourse and expanding political spaces. In rich and captivating case studies, this book turns conventional depictions of controlled Chinese and Vietnamese civil societies on their head. Wells-Dang demonstrates a wider range of advocacy techniques and strategies than previously documented in one-party authoritarian political systems. He argues convincingly that informal and virtual networks, rather than corporatist associations or autonomous non-profit organizations, are the true building blocks of civil society.

《质的研究方法与社会科学研究》是国内第一部系统评介“质的研究方法”（qualitative research）的专著，对目前国际社会科学界提出的有关理论问题以及新近发展出来的操作手段进行了深入的探讨，并结合有关西方学者以及作者自己的研究实例对其进行了生动的展示和说明。“质的研究方法”目前在社会科学研究领域是与“量的研究方法”相提并论、交相辉映的一种研究方法，它要求研究者深入社会现象，通过亲身体验了解研究对象的存在方式和意义解释，在原始资料的基础之上建立相关理论。

What role has litigation played in the struggle for equal pay between women and men? This book explains how wage discrimination battles have raised public legal consciousness and helped reform activists mobilize working women in the pay equity movement since the 1970s. This work explores the political strategies in more than a dozen pay equity struggles since the late 1970s, including battles of state employees in Washington and Connecticut, as well as city employees in San Jose and Los Angeles. Relying on interviews with over 140 union and feminist activists, the author shows that, even when the courts failed to correct wage discrimination, litigation and other forms of legal advocacy provided reformers with the legal discourse - the understanding of legal rights and their constraints - for defining and advancing their cause.

How can the poor and weak “work”a political system to their advantage?
Drawing mainly on interviews and surveys in rural China, Kevin O’Brien and
Lianjiang Li show that popular action often hinges on locating and exploiting
divisions within the state. Otherwise powerless people use the rhetoric and
commitments of the central government to try to fight misconduct by local
officials, open up clogged channels of participation, and push back the frontiers of the permissible. This “rightful resistance” has far-reaching implications for our understanding of contentious politics. As O’Brien and Li explore the origins, dynamics, and consequences of rightful resistance, they highlight similarities between collective action in places as varied as China, the former East Germany, and the United States, while suggesting how Chinese experiences speak to issues such as opportunities to protest, claims radicalization, tactical innovation, and the outcomes of contention. Although the focus of their rich, ground-level analysis is contemporary China, the authors make a compelling argument that wherever a gap between rights promised and rights delivered exists, there is room for rightful resistance to emerge.

查尔斯·蒂利和西德尼·塔罗在本书中讨论了抗争政治的各种形式，包括革命、社会运动、宗教和伦理冲突、民族主义和公民权利以及跨国界运动等。它还为各种不同抗争的研究、比较和解释提供了一套分析工具和程序，阐释了抗争剧目和抗争表演的关系。作者还分析了历史上和当前的许多案例，包括二战后的波兰、巴以冲突、本·拉登问题和苏丹内战。他们向读者提供了一种社会和政治分析的清晰范式。

本书选取了自法国大革命以来发生在世界各地的18例斗争事件，试图通过比较性的分析，为研究不同时期、不同地域的各类政治斗争事件提出一个较具一般性的方案。几位作者详细说明了他们在解释革命、民族主义及民主化问题时所使用方法的含义，力图辨明一再引发广泛的斗争政治活动的各种机制及其作用过程，如居间联络、范畴形成和精英背叛等等，由此对目前斗争政治研究领域盛行的静态的单一行动者模式提出批判，并将分析的重心转移到斗争中的动态互动上。

民族和民族主义是什么？其本质是什么？它们在历史上是怎样出现的，又经历了怎样的变迁？为何它们能够在今天拥有如此深刻的情感上的正当性？这些都是研究民族和民族主义问题的学者们试图要解答的问题。本书的作者本尼迪克特・安德森以“哥白尼精神“独辟蹊径，从民族情感与文化根源出发探讨了不同民族属性的、全球各地的“想象的共同体“，力图提出一个解释上述关于民族与民族主义问题的新的理论典范。安德森将民族、民族属性与民族主义视为一种“特殊的文化的人造物“，将民族定义为“一种想象的政治共同体“。 他认为这些“想象的共同体“的形成主要取决于以下因素：宗教信仰的领土化、古典王朝家族的衰微、时间观念的改变、资本主义与印刷术之间的交互作用、国家方言的发展等。通过比较史和历史社会学的方法，安德森对民族主义的起源与散布进行了论证：他否定了多数学者所认同的民族主义起源于欧洲的观点，认为18世纪末和19世纪初的南北美洲殖民地独立运动才是“第一波“的民族主义，民族主义是经由美洲而散播至欧洲，再到亚洲和非洲。安德森百科全书式的欧洲史素养与当代东南亚研究权威的背景，以及他对东西方多种语言的掌握能力，使得他的论证更具说服力。《想象的共同体》独辟蹊径的研究视角令它已经成为当代研究民族与民族主义的经典著作，其影响所及几乎横跨所有人文与社会学科，是当代文史社会科学学生必读之书，同时也是理解人类社会诸多现象时，不可或缺的指引。

本书以中产阶级的生活方式为观察对象，透过丰富鲜活的民俗材料，描述了1880年至1910年间的瑞典中产阶级的生活图景：他们尝试摆脱“暴发户”的嘴脸，并希望与农民、没落贵族以及无产者划清界限；在努力营造自身的文化和生活方式的同时，他们也认为自己的文化形式是最文明、最先进的，并应被推广给普罗大众。正是在对“美好生活”的包装与塑造中，中产阶级自身的文化和价值观也成功地渗透到现代日常生活的每一个琐碎庸常的角落。
对于世纪之交瑞典中产阶级的这一研究发人深省，它表明对中产阶级的研究与认识应当基于理解而非抨击；本书的另一个重要贡献是表现历史研究可以结合其他相邻学科的方法。这两个成就令人鼓舞。
——Journal of Modern History
作者们所体现的知识视野之广令人惊叹。他们对来自民族学档案、课本、回忆录、小说和礼仪手册中的材料巧手编织，展现了中产阶级、农民和工人阶级的丰富的日常生活画面。本书还对社会文化的复杂性、冲突与抵牾进行了深入的思考，而这些内容往往都被忽视了。
——American Anthropologist
本书融合了历史学和民族学的方法所呈现的生活方式，不仅能吸引斯堪底纳维亚的学者们，同样也能吸引历史学家、社会学家，以及试图描述与解读19世纪西方文化和中产阶级的所有人。
——Ethnos

本书通过梳理英国文学中有关乡村与城市的种种论断和描述，对当代文学及文化研究中一些错误的乡村观念和城市观念进行了剖析，指出其谬误。作者集中驳斥了部分学者所坚持的“消逝的农村经济”、“快乐的英格兰”、“黄金时代”等缅怀旧日农村的错误观念，指出这些观念只是作者的想象，无论是历 史事实，还是部分作家的作品，都显示出昔日的英国农村充满了苦难，相对于城市而言，农村既不等同于落后和愚昧，也不是充满欢乐的故园；同理，城市虽然是在新的生产方式确立后兴盛起来的，但城市并不必然代表了进步，城市也面临太多的问题。简言之，城市无法拯救乡村，乡村也拯救不了城市。城市与乡村的这种矛盾与张力反映了资本主义发展模式遇到的一场全面而重的危机，要化解这场不断加深的危机，人类必须抵抗资本主义。
全书共二十五章。第一章具有前言的性质，概括了历史上人们围绕“乡村”和“城市”所形成的各种观念，指出英国经验对于研究“乡村”和“城市”关系所具有的重要意义。第二十五章为全书的总结。主体部分二十三章以英国文学中根深蒂固的乡村怀旧为起点，回顾了十六至二十世纪多部英国文学作品（包括诗歌、戏剧、小说、散文、随笔等）中对于“乡村”和“城市”的描写以及有关“乡村”和“城市”观点的发展变化，并将之与资本主义社会的整体发展过程联系起来，揭示出“乡村”和“城市”对立的实质及其所反映的现代大都市和工业化生活方式的危机。
雷蒙·威廉斯是一个世纪来最伟大的文学批评家之一，这是他最好的著作。对于英国文学和历史方面的课程而言，这是一本理想读物。
——布里·汤普森，加州大学
书中有第一手的文本材料，行文风格简明扼要，具有强烈的感染力。因为书中流露出作者对其论述主题的真切关注。
——纳奥米 布利文，《纽约客》

·如何构思论文选题？
·怎样撰写调查报告？
·为什么要制定写作进程时间表？
·论文格式是一种“八股”吗？
……
这是一本入门指导手册，旨在帮助社会学或更广义的社会科学专业的学生，了解专业论文写作的路径。作者针对大学不同阶段训练中各种论文写作的常见问题，指明了写作必备的要领、格式和目标，尤其强调了研究性思考和规范化表达的重要性。

赫伯特·尔库塞（Herbert Marcuse，1898-1979）是法兰克福学派左翼主要代表人物，本书是其最负盛名的著作，旨在揭示当代发达工业社会型的极权主义特征。此书在英国和美国出版后，先后在德国和法国出德文版和法文版，其后又译成多种文字在许多国家出版，被称为西方6 0年代末大学造反运动的教科书.
全书除导言外包括“单向度社会”、“单向度的思想”和“进行替代性选择的机会”三部分。作者通过对政治、生活、思想、文化、语言等领域的分析、批判，指出发达工业社会是如何成功地压制了人们内心中的否定性、批判性、超越性的向度，使这个社会成为单向度的社会，而生活于其中的人成了单向度的人，这种人丧失了自由和创造力，不再想像或追求与现实生活不同的另一种生活。本书对现代资本主义社会作了较为深刻的揭露和探索，但暴露出其社会批判理论的乌托邦性质。本书对研究兰克福学派和马尔库塞理论的发展，有重要的理论价值