Sociology

Preface

Writing a textbook is an onerous task. In his Foreword to Harry M. Johnson's well-received textbook, Robert Merton conceded that there was ‘no point in hiding my enthusiasm for this book, for I could not possibly have succeeded in the attempt’. What Merton acknowledges is true of many noted scholars, whose contributions fill the pages of textbooks but who never attempted one. Merton's magnum opus, titled Social Theory and Social Structure, is an attempt towards the codification of theory and research. Though it is essential reading for the sociologist-in-the-making, but it is not a textbook. Textbook writing demands a different sort of skills. It is like a teacher in absentia. I have been both a teacher and a researcher, but this is the ...