Modern Sociological Theory

The authors are proud sponsors of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award―enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop.

Now with SAGE Publishing, and co-authored by one of the foremost authorities on sociological theory, the Eighth Edition of Modern Sociological Theory by George Ritzer and Jeffrey Stepnisky provides a comprehensive overview of the major theorists and theoretical schools, from the Structural Functionalism of early 20th century through the cutting-edge theories of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The integration of key theories with biographical sketches of theorists and the requisite historical and intellectual context helps students to better understand the original works of contemporary thinkers.

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.

Jeffrey Stepnisky is an Associate Professor of Sociology at MacEwan University in Alberta, Canada, where he teaches classical and contemporary social theory. He has published in the area of social theory, especially as it relates to questions of subjectivity, in journals such as The Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior and Social Theory & Health. Along with this book he is co-author of Sociological Theory, Classical Sociological Theory, and Modern Sociological Theory, and has co-edited the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists, all with George Ritzer.