They just don't write intellectual histories like this anymore. Coser's prose is lucid, his research deep and compelling. I have to admit I read this book in one great gulp. As I did, I felt random insights gained in other books into the rise of the modern intellectual begin to fall into place under the gentle pressure of Coser's narrative.

For instance, the concomitant rise of the English coffeehouse and the rise of the intellectual in that newly formed public space. Habermas points to this innovation as the basis for his notion of the public sphere. Prior to the public coffeehouse Coser points out, intellectuals had very little opportunity to meet, to talk, to argue, to pursue their particular interests with others in a free and unpoliced space. Modern coffeehouse franchise trades on this legacy; of course, but only superficially. The original coffeehouses in London each had their own character, their own clientele, their own subject matter. And people talked, they held forth, they created public opinion. I don't hear much public opinion being expressed in today's expresso parlors. In fact, I suspect a real political discussion would be considered out of bounds. His discussion of the "Brain Trust" in the FDR adminsistration is compelling, too -- the point at which intellectuals were at last let into the center of American power.

Taken in tandem with "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" by Richard Hofstadter, Coser and Hofstader tell a fascinating story of the rise of the intellectual and the resistance they have encountered and continue to encounter.

Check out the list provided by Plaegius shown on this page -- I've read three of them so far, and have been very pleased so far!

I used this book for a research paper....wonderful source. Well written, and easy to understand.

Lewis A. Coser does an excellant job pulling together literature from many of the key social theorists including Comte, Marx, Spenscer, Durkheim, Weber, etc. The forward to book best sums up the books goal to provide a "cexposition of classical sociological thought is critical in tone, comprehensive in scope, and conscientious in its attention to detail." The book clearly achieves this goal! A definate highlight is the final chapter which provides overview and analysis of recent trends in American sciological thought.

A classic in many ways, the Division of Labor is a great starting point for sociology - not because it's terribly sexy or interesting or even correct, but because it begins to lay out what sociology can do.

... The Halls translation is quite a good one. If we examine the Halls text and compare it to the "revisions" that the reviewer has posed, we find that the differences are not merely aesthetic, they are substantive. They change the meaning of the sentence, and therefore the nature and meaning of Durkheim's argument.

I think that this Durkheim's best work. As a warning, it is not easy; perhaps this is where the difficulty with the translation lies. But for anyone interested in sociological theory, this book is essential reading. The translation is the best out there.

... The Coser edition of THE DIVISION OF LABOUR is commonly regarded as the best english translation edition.

Maurice Halbwachs, french sociologist and student of Durkheim, died in Nazi camps in 1945. His work can be considered as the foundation of the sociology of memory, and is rediscovered today in Europe and in the US. An essential reading for any scholar interested in the relationship between history, memory, and the past.

This monograph constitutes a response to the criticisms of Christianity outlined in Nietzsche's GENEOLOGY OF MORALS, in which Nietzsche argues that Christianity is a "slave revolt" of the weak--an attempt by the impotent to bring down the vitality of the capable nobility. Scheler's response is multi-faceted but centers on Nietzsche's failure to understand the nature of Christian love. Christianity is not a destructive enterprise trying to bring everyone down to the same low level of its impotent faithful, who must put their trust in the next world because they can get nowhere in this one. Rather, it attempts constructively to bring everyone UP to a new level of human flourishing. Christianity's preoccupation with the poor, weak, and marginalized stems from a recognition, through divine love, of the miracle of God's creation and infinite possibilities present even in them. The following quotation well represents Scheler's position (and Nietzsche's perspectival error): "Those people [modern nihilists] saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas [St.] Francis sees the holiness of life even in a bug." (p. 70). This monograph is certainly not the last word on Nietzsche's famous anti-Christian polemic, and it contains many avenues of argumentation that are not described here; but it is fair to say that it articulates a capable response to the core of his arguments. And like the Texas Cottonwood tree, when the core of the trunk rots, the result is obvious during the next storm.