Forest and the Trees

by Allan G. Johnson

Book Overview

If sociology could teach everyone just one thing, what would it be? What insight about the nature of social life could serve as a gateway to questions that point toward everything we want to know? What could we use as a starting point, a core view of reality on which sociological practice of all kinds is based, consciously or not? The Forest and the Trees is one sociologist's response to the hypothetical -- the core insight with the greatest potential...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156639564X
• ISBN13: 9781566395649
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Perfect for an Intro Course

Johnson explains the sociological imagination and its importance in simple, easy to understand language. He references the major thinkers in sociology such as Mills, Marx, Mead, etc. while describing their ideas in more contemporary language. My students love reading this book prior to everything else in the course. It sets the framework for dealing with issues like gender inequality, definitions of selfhood, and the structure of institutions. Also, if you want students to read the original theories from writers like Derrida or Berger and Luckman, this is a good reference book for them if they're not sure they get the main idea.Furthermore, Johnson's use of section headings helps students study for exams. For example, they know what the main ideas in each chapter are just by flipping through the pages. If they see a heading they can't define, then they can just re-read that section.Because the whole book is his narration, I recommend a reader of some sort - either one you put together yourself or one from Pine Forge Press or something. I've found that students actually ENJOY applying these ideas to sociological articles.

It's very interesting.

In the book, Dr. Johnson gives the readers a lot of examples in our daily life to make connection with the sociology. The book is not only the introduction book to the Sociology but also a reference book of it, of course, in the interesting way. It makes readers thinking in sociological way. For the people who are always curious about the world, you should read this book, 'cause the sociology will give you another answer that you've never seen before.