Sanderson explores the nature of the contemporary world’s 200 societies by comparing and contrasting their basic institutions and patterns of social organization. Major topics include the rich democracies and how they became rich and democratic; the expansion of government and the welfare state; the collapse of Communism and the transition to postsocialist societies; the conditions of less-developed countries, with attention to those that are developing rapidly as well as those that continue to lag far behind; racial and ethnic divisions and conflicts worldwide; the gender revolution of the past fifty years and changing contemporary patterns of gender inequality throughout the world; major shifts in family patterns and the transition to below-replacement fertility; the global spread and expansion of mass education and educational credentialism; worldwide patterns of religious belief and practice; a detailed evaluation of the secularization thesis; economic, political, and cultural globalization; the nature of social and economic progress over the past two centuries; and nine predictions concerning the short-term and long-term future of the world. The book provides detailed and fully up-to-date statistical data on societies in forty-three tables.
Author(s): Stephen K. Sanderson
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2015
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 230
Tags: Organizational Sociology; Sociology
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Rich Democracies, I: Economy, Work, and Class
Premodern Prelude
Being and Becoming a Rich Democracy
Occupation and Stratification
Modern Welfare States
From Industrial to Postindustrial Society?
2. Rich Democracies, II: The Polity
Early Modern States
The Increasing Size and Scope of the State
From Autocracy to Democracy
The Rarity and Difficulty of Democracy
3. Socialist and Postsocialist Societies
The Nature of State Socialism
Leninist Regimes
Reform and the Transition to Postsocialism
The Great Collapse
Postsocialism
Does Socialism Have a Future?
4. The Less-Developed World
The Nature of Underdevelopment
Why Underdevelopment?
Development in East Asia
Development in Latin America
Sub-Saharan Africa and the Failure of Development
5. Race and Ethnicity
Race in the United States
Race in Brazil
Race in South Africa
Ethnic Homogeneity and Heterogeneity
Ethnicity and Its Discontents
6. Gender Roles and Relations
The Patriarchal Past
The Great Gender Transformation
The Contemporary Situation
7. Marriage and Families
The Traditional Family in Asia and Europe
The Evolution of the Modern Family System
The Contemporary Family Revolution
From Large Families to Small
The Modern Family: Change or Decline?
8. Modern Mass Education
Education in Historical Perspective
The Emergence and Expansion of Mass Education
Explaining Educational Expansion
Credentialism and Its Consequences
9. Religion in the World
What Religion Is
The World’s Religions
Religious Groups in Modern Societies
Religion in the United States and Europe
Religion in Latin America
The Secularization Controversy
10. Globalization (with Arthur S. Alderson)
What Globalization Is
Globalization and Its Critics
Is Globalization Something New?
11. Assessing Past and Future
Have We Progressed?
Are We Happier?
Nine Predictions in Search of a Future
References
Index
