Are human beings a species in constant need of firm, aggressive government to save us from ourselves? Or are we fundamentally sociable beings, woven together in a complex array of networks, interdependent and willing to work together? The Sense of Sociability is a modern, highly readable, and often idiosyncratic look at human sociability by one of Canada's top sociologists. Lorne Tepperman explores why we have difficulty getting along, and why in spite of these difficulties we still manage for the most part to live together. Without interference from poor government and other malign influences, he argues, people can work out a great deal of their lives themselves. Tepperman, one of Canada's foremost sociologists, sees it as his job to look at our "unwashed" history to reveal how ordinary people doing ordinary things is the process that makes human history. About the Author: Lorne Tepperman is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He served as Chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Toronto from 1997 to 2003, and has also been elected President of the Canadian Sociological Association and received the CSA’s Outstanding Contribution Award. He has written and edited more than two dozen books on various areas of sociology, including the bestselling introductory sociology text, Sociology: Canadian Perspectives (OUP 2009). |
