Table of Contents

PART ONE: METATHEORIZING
Metatheorizing in Sociology
The Delineation of an Underlying Architectonic
Sociology
A Multiple Paradigm Science
Toward an Integrated Sociological Paradigm
Image of the Subject Matter
Potential Examplars for an Integrated Sociological Paradigm
Methodological Relationism
Lessons for and from Social Psychology
From Exclusion to Inclusion to Chaos (?) In Sociological Theory
The Implications of Postmodern Social Theory for Metatheorizing in Sociology
PART TWO: RATIONALIZATION THEORY
Rationalization and Deprofessionalization of Physicians
The McDonaldization of Society
Hyperrationality
An Extension of Weberian and Neo-Weberian Theory
Mannheim′s Theory of Rationalization
An Alternative Resource for the McDonaldization Thesis?
The McDonaldization of American Sociology
A Metasociological Analysis

About the Author

George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, where he has also been a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and won a Teaching Excellence Award. He was awarded the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award by the American Sociological Association, an honorary doctorate from LaTrobe University in Australia, and the Robin Williams Lectureship from the Eastern Sociological Society. His best-known work, The McDonaldization of Society (8th ed.), has been read by hundreds of thousands of students over two decades and translated into over a dozen languages. Ritzer is also the editor of McDonaldization: The Reader; and author of other works of critical sociology related to the McDonaldization thesis, including Enchanting a Disenchanted World, The Globalization of Nothing, Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society, as well as a series best-selling social theory textbooks and Globalization: A Basic Text. He is the Editor of the Encyclopedia of Social Theory (2 vols.), the Encyclopedia of Sociology (11 vols.; 2nd edition forthcoming), the Encyclopedia of Globalization (5 vols.), and is Founding Editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture. In 2016 he will publish the second edition of Essentials of Sociology with SAGE.

Reviews

′This book is a book that all sociologists should read. It brings together in one volume many of the ideas that have made Ritzer one of the leading sociologist in the world. It should be a book on everyone′s bookshelf′ - Jonathan H Turner