Allan G. Johnson is Professor of Sociology at Hartford College for Women. His previous publications include
The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise (1997), The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal
Legacy (1997), and Human Arrangements (fourth edition, 1996).
Review
"All praise to Allan Johnson for this fine second edition of the very best portable dictionary of sociology.
Clear and knowing, it skillfully anatomizes the concepts basic to a sociological understanding of social life.
It belongs in every college and public library and in many a personal library as well."
--Robert K. Merton, Columbia University
"Here is a book that every academic library and every department of sociology should own. The author's short
opening essay is clear and valuable [and he] has chosen his vocabulary items well. Every word I looked up was there.
His essay definitions are good, and closely representative of the discipline, [and] he precisely grasps the distinctive
elements of each concept."
--Contemporary Sociology
" It is a portable dictionary that will help undergraduates and others interested in understanding the central
concepts of sociology by offering them a representative sampling of some specialized areas within the field and
some important concepts from related disciplines-such as Authority, Feminism and Teleoogical Explanation. This
is unique in one respect. The others are edited collections of entries composed by many writers, but Johnson wrote
this entire work in an effort to present the whole conceptualframework with one continous voice."
--Booklist, Chicago, Illinois
"Inexpensive, with an attractive format, this dictionary would be helpful for sociology students and would
make a good, if not essential, addition to library collections."
--P. Flaherty, Eastern Kentucky University
Blackwell Publishers Web Site, January, 2001
Summary
This new edition of Allan G. Johnson's one-volume dictionary includes 75 new entries, as well as an expanded
biographical section, extensive revisions and updates, and more thorough cross-referencing. The combination of
clear prose, engaging examples, a single author's voice, and minimal assumptions about the average reader's prior
knowledge of the field, makes this a distinctive and valuable reference work.
Johnson defines amorphous and fuzzy sociological concepts in a lively and sensible way and his book provides an
introduction to what it means to think sociologically. For a deeper understanding of social life, and of the only
discipline dedicated to making sense of it in all its diversity, this Dictionary is a perfect guide.
Table of Contents
About this Book.
Dictionary Entries A-Z.
Biographical Sketches: A Selected Sociological Who's Who.
Index
