First Published in 1998. This is Volume XI of twenty-two in a series on Social Theory and Methodology. Notions are widespread that sociological theory is either an industrious activity on the drawing boards of the architects of fantasy or a branch of esoterics operating in a shadowy realm of semi-darkness. The present study holds neither of these conceptions of sociological. The present study’s function is to illuminate the difference between one theory and another. The power and reliabili...

This reader shows the rich history and wide contemporary application of symbolic interaction theory.

Max Weber's early twentieth-century study of the religions and civilization of India is a great pioneering adventure in the sociology of ancient India. Weber's insight and analysis - especially his application of the sociological perspective to the work of classical Indologists and the religious texts available to him - were to add much to the store of the social scientist. Later, historians and archaeologists were to confirm a surprising number of Weber's theories.The central conc...