LiteratureSocial TheorySociology

50 Sociology Books to enhance your Sociological Imagination

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Source: ninocare

See below 50 Sociology Books which will have you analysing the world from a different perspective. Remember, the Sociological Imagination is developed over time so don’t feel scared to read one of these books every once in a while.

  1. Friedrich Engels & Karl MarxThe Communist Manifesto
  2. Emile DurkheimSuicide: A Study in Sociology
  3. Pierre BourdieuDistinction
  4. Norbert EliasThe Civilizing Process
  5. Benedict AndersonImagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
  6. C. Wright MillsThe Sociological Imagination
  7. Simone de BeauvoirThe Second Sex
  8. Howard S. BeckerOutsiders: Studies in Sociology of Deviance
  9. Michel FoucaultDiscipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
  10. Micheal KimmellGuyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
  11. Max WeberThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
  12. Sue PryceFixing Drugs: The Politics of Drug Prohibition
  13. Raewyn ConnellMasculinities
  14. Michel FoucaultThe History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge v. 1
  15. Michel FoucaultThe History of Sexuality: The Use of Pleasure v. 2
  16. Michel FoucaultThe Care of the Self 
  17. Theodor W. Adorno & Max HorkheimerDialectic of Enlightenment
  18. Malcolm GladwellThe Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
  19. W. E. B. Du BoisThe Souls of Black Folk
  20. Robert D. PutnamBowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
  21. Steven D. LevittFreakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

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  22. Joseph CampbellThe Power of Myth
  23. Alexis de TocquevilleDemocracy in America: And Two Essays on America
  24. Jared DiamondGuns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
  25. Trevor NoahBorn A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
  26. Michelle AlexanderThe New Jim Crow
  27. George RitzerThe McDonaldization of Society
  28. Aziz AnsariModern Romance
  29. Thorstein VeblenThe Theory of the Leisure Class
  30. Peter L. BergerThe Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
  31. Naomi WolfThe Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women
  32. Yuval Noah HarariSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  33. Owen JonesChavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
  34. Emile DurkheimThe Elementary Forms of Religious Life
  35. Sudhir VenkateshGang Leader for a Day
  36. Emile DurkheimThe Division of Labor in Society
  37. Jessica ValentiThe Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women
  38. C. Wright MillsThe Power Elite
  39. Erving GoffmanStigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity
  40. Betty FriedanThe Feminine Mystique
  41. Malcolm GladwellOutliers: The Story of Success
  42. Judith ButlerGender Trouble
  43. Peggy OrensteinCinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
  44. Erving GoffmanAsylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
  45. Max WeberEconomy and Society
  46. Bell HooksAin’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
  47. Karl MarxCapital: Critique of Political Economy v. 1
  48. Naomi KleinNo Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics
  49. Sylvia WalbyTheorizing Patriarchy
  50. Michel FoucaultPower: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984

Enjoy reading these 50  Sociology Books and let us know any other Sociology Books we may have missed.

8 comments

  1. Anonymous 9 July, 2019 at 22:23 Reply

    Thank you for your offering of information. I came around this link from the sociological cinema whose work I’ve appreciated. And I think we should be doing this work of syllabus creation in community, because I know I have blind spots, ways of thinking that would completely leave out large swaths of people, for me it’s usually folks who non-english speakers and folks might not center books. Who is your list centering and putting on the periphery?

    Honestly I think this list really deeply centers western thinkers and western way of knowing (I think 98% of the folk are from western places, I could be wrong). My addition if you’re trying to really enhance the way the worlds thinks include different thinkers, try this whole process again before publishing, ask folks from different experiences so they can be a part of the creation of the center. At that point I wonder would this list only include books at that point? What other forms of knowing information might it need if other people who might not have as much access to books center. I’d be happy to be a part of that group of folks if you dropped a survey link in this thread.

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