Sociology

Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition

Elizabeth J. Perry

How do we explain the surprising trajectory of the Chinese Communist revolution? Why has it taken such a different route from its Russian prototype? An answer, Elizabeth Perry suggests, ... More

How do we explain the surprising trajectory of the Chinese Communist revolution? Why has it taken such a different route from its Russian prototype? An answer, Elizabeth Perry suggests, lies in the Chinese Communists’ creative development and deployment of cultural resources – during their revolutionary rise to power and afterwards. Skillful “cultural positioning” and “cultural patronage,” on the part of Mao Zedong, his comrades and successors, helped to construct a polity in which a once alien Communist system came to be accepted as familiarly “Chinese.” Perry traces this process through a case study of the Anyuan coal mine, a place where Mao and other early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party mobilized an influential labor movement at the beginning of their revolution, and whose history later became a touchstone of “political correctness” in the People’s Republic of China. Once known as “China’s Little Moscow,” Anyuan came over time to symbolize a distinctively Chinese revolutionary tradition. Yet the meanings of that tradition remain highly contested, as contemporary Chinese debate their revolutionary past in search of a new political future. Less

Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer

Simon Partner

This book investigates one of the great success stories of the twentieth century: the rise of the Japanese electronics industry. Contrary to mainstream interpretation, it discovers that ... More

This book investigates one of the great success stories of the twentieth century: the rise of the Japanese electronics industry. Contrary to mainstream interpretation, it discovers that behind the meteoric rise of Sony, Matsushita, Toshiba, and other electrical goods companies was neither the iron hand of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry nor a government-sponsored export-led growth policy, but rather an explosion of domestic consumer demand that began in the 1950s. This powerful consumer boom differed fundamentally from the one under way at the same time in the United States in that it began from widespread poverty and comparatively miserable living conditions. Beginning with a discussion of the prewar origins of the consumer engine that was to take off under the American Occupation, the book quickly turns its sights to the business leaders, inventors, laborers, and ordinary citizens who participated in the broadly successful effort to create new markets for expensive, unfamiliar new products. It relates these pressure-cooker years in Japan to the key themes of twentieth-century experience worldwide: the role of technology in promoting social change, the rise of mass consumer societies, and the construction of gender in advanced industrial economies. Less

Atonement and Forgiveness: A New Model for Black Reparations

Roy Brooks

This book reframes one of the most important, controversial, and misunderstood issues of our time in this far-reaching reassessment of the growing debate on black reparation. It shifts ... More

This book reframes one of the most important, controversial, and misunderstood issues of our time in this far-reaching reassessment of the growing debate on black reparation. It shifts the focus of the issue from the backward-looking question of compensation for victims to a more forward-looking racial reconciliation. Offering a comprehensive discussion of the history of the black redress movement, the book puts forward a powerful new plan for repairing the damaged relationship between the federal government and black Americans in the aftermath of 240 years of slavery and another 100 years of government-sanctioned racial segregation. Key to the author's vision is the government's clear signal that it understands the magnitude of the atrocity it committed against an innocent people, that it takes full responsibility, and that it publicly requests forgiveness—in other words, that it apologizes. The government must make that apology believable, the author explains, by a tangible act which turns the rhetoric of apology into a meaningful, material reality; that is, by reparation. Apology and reparation together constitute atonement. Atonement, in turn, imposes a reciprocal civic obligation on black Americans to forgive, which allows them to start relinquishing racial resentment and to begin trusting the government's commitment to racial equality. The author's bold proposal situates the argument for reparations within a larger, international framework—namely, a post-Holocaust vision of government responsibility for genocide, slavery, apartheid, and similar acts of injustice. The book makes the case that only with this spirit of heightened morality, identity, egalitarianism, and restorative justice can genuine racial reconciliation take place in America. Less

Backlash against Welfare Mothers: Past and Present

Ellen Reese

This book is a forceful examination of how and why a state-level revolt against welfare, begun in the late 1940s, was transformed into a national-level assault that destroyed a critical ... More

This book is a forceful examination of how and why a state-level revolt against welfare, begun in the late 1940s, was transformed into a national-level assault that destroyed a critical part of the nation’s safety net, with tragic consequences for American society. With a wealth of original research, the book puts recent debates about the contemporary welfare backlash into an historical perspective. It provides a closer look at these early anti-welfare campaigns, showing why they were more successful in some states than others and how opponents of welfare sometimes targeted Puerto Ricans and Chicanos as well as blacks for cutbacks. The book’s research reveals both the continuities and changes in American welfare opposition from the late 1940s to the present. The book brings new evidence to light that reveals how large farmers and racist politicians, concerned about the supply of cheap labor, appealed to white voters’ racial resentments and stereotypes about unwed mothers, blacks, and immigrants in the 1950s. It then examines congressional failure to replace the current welfare system with a more popular alternative in the 1960s and 1970s, which paved the way for national assaults on welfare. Taking a fresh look at recent debates on welfare reform, the book explores how and why politicians competing for the white vote and right-wing think tanks promoting business interests appeased the Christian right and manufactured consent for cutbacks through a powerful, racially coded discourse. Finally, through firsthand testimonies, the book vividly portrays the tragic consequences of current welfare policies and calls for a bold new agenda for working families. Less

Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America

Aihwa Ong

Fleeing the murderous Pol Pot regime, Cambodian refugees arrive in America as at once the victims and the heroes of America's misadventures in Southeast Asia; and their encounters with ... More

Fleeing the murderous Pol Pot regime, Cambodian refugees arrive in America as at once the victims and the heroes of America's misadventures in Southeast Asia; and their encounters with American citizenship are contradictory as well. Service providers, bureaucrats, and employers exhort them to be self-reliant, individualistic, and free, even as the system and the culture constrain them within terms of ethnicity, race, and class. This book tells the story of Cambodian Americans experiencing American citizenship from the bottom-up. Based on extensive fieldwork in Oakland and San Francisco, the study puts a human face on how American institutions—of health, welfare, law, police, church, and industry—affect minority citizens as they negotiate American culture and re-interpret the American dream. Earlier work has described elite Asians shuttling across the Pacific. This parallel study tells the very different story of “the other Asians” whose route takes them from refugee camps to California's inner-city and high-tech enclaves. In this book we see these refugees becoming new citizen-subjects through a dual process of being-made and self-making, balancing religious salvation and entrepreneurial values as they endure and undermine, absorb and deflect conflicting lessons about welfare, work, medicine, gender, parenting, and mass culture. Trying to hold on to the values of family and home culture, Cambodian Americans nonetheless often feel that “Buddha is hiding”. Less

California in the New Millennium: The Changing Social and Political Landscape

Mark Baldassare

What will California look like by the middle of the twenty-first century? Change is occurring in the state at a breathtaking pace. It will face many extraordinary challenges. Yet today ... More

What will California look like by the middle of the twenty-first century? Change is occurring in the state at a breathtaking pace. It will face many extraordinary challenges. Yet today most Californians believe that their elected officials are unable to develop effective public policies. The book examines the powerful undercurrents — economic, demographic, and political — shaping California at this critical juncture in its history. It focuses on three trends that are profoundly affecting the social and political landscape of the state: political distrust, racial and ethnic change, and regional diversity. The book discusses the complexities of this situation and offers a series of substantive recommendations for how California can come to terms with the unprecedented challenges it faces. Less

Changing Inequality

Rebecca M. Blank

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of an economic trend that has been reshaping the United States over the past three decades: rapidly rising income inequality. It provides an ... More

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of an economic trend that has been reshaping the United States over the past three decades: rapidly rising income inequality. It provides an overview of how and why the level and distribution of income and wealth has changed since 1979, sets this situation within its historical context, and investigates the forces that are driving it. Among other factors, the book looks closely at changes within families, including women's increasing participation in the work force. The book includes some surprising findings—for example, that per-person income has risen sharply among almost all social groups, even as income has become more unequally distributed. Looking toward the future, the book suggests that while rising inequality will likely be with us for many decades to come, it is not an inevitable outcome. This book considers what can be done to address this trend, and also explores the question: why should we be concerned about this phenomenon? Less

Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels

Rachel Sherman

This book goes behind the scenes in two urban luxury hotels to give a nuanced picture of the workers who care for and cater to wealthy guests by providing seemingly unlimited personal ... More

This book goes behind the scenes in two urban luxury hotels to give a nuanced picture of the workers who care for and cater to wealthy guests by providing seemingly unlimited personal attention. Drawing on in-depth interviews and extended ethnographic research in a range of hotel jobs, including concierge, bellperson, and housekeeper, the author gives an insightful analysis of what exactly luxury service consists of, how managers organize its production, and how workers and guests negotiate the inequality between them. She finds that workers employ a variety of practices to assert a powerful sense of self, including playing games, comparing themselves to other workers and guests, and forming meaningful and reciprocal relations with guests. Through their contact with hotel staff, guests learn how to behave in the luxury environment and come to see themselves as deserving of luxury consumption. These practices, the author argues, help make class inequality seem normal, something to be taken for granted. Throughout, this book sheds new light on the complex relationship between class and service work, an increasingly relevant topic in light of the growing economic inequality in the United States that underlies luxury consumption. Less

Coming of Age in America: The Transition to Adulthood in the Twenty-First Century

Bernard Giesen

Mary Waters (ed.)

What is it like to become an adult in twenty-first-century America? This book takes us to four very different places—New York City; San Diego; rural Iowa; and Saint Paul, Minnesota—to ... More

What is it like to become an adult in twenty-first-century America? This book takes us to four very different places—New York City; San Diego; rural Iowa; and Saint Paul, Minnesota—to explore the dramatic shifts in coming-of-age experiences across the country. Drawing from in-depth interviews with people in their twenties and early thirties, it probes experiences and decisions surrounding education, work, marriage, parenthood, and housing. The first study to systematically explore this phenomenon from a qualitative perspective, the book offers a clear view of how traditional patterns and expectations are changing, of the range of forces that are shaping these changes, and of how young people themselves view their lives. Less

Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity

Jeffrey Alexander

In this collaboratively authored work, five sociologists develop an ambitious theoretical model of “cultural trauma” and on this basis build a new understanding of how social groups ... More

In this collaboratively authored work, five sociologists develop an ambitious theoretical model of “cultural trauma” and on this basis build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new and binding understandings of social responsibility. Looking at the “meaning making process” as an open-ended social dialogue in which strikingly different social narratives vie for influence, the chapters outline a strongly constructivist approach to trauma and apply this theoretical model in a series of extensive case studies, including the Nazi Holocaust, slavery in the United States, and September 11, 2001. Less