Customer Reviews

Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Very few books in sociology so clearly and profoundly conceptualize the concepts of social occasions as do the works of Erving Goffman. This book is especially important for it provides a framework for tricking out the seen but unnoticed behaviors of everyday life. The book's profoundity is not in what stands out in human intercourse, but rather what does not. The mundane world of social interaction is revealed in what most readers will find to be commonsensically true. In the same way that a physicist can tell us why a baseball flies over the fence (a fairly mundane evernt) in terms of mass, velocity, and drag coefficients, Goffman tells us why the ordinary is able to sustain itself as such.

I am actually writing this in response to the review that gave 1 star. Yes this is a sociological text not aimed at children. However this work is actually quite easy to read (for most adults with some familiarity with sociology) and definitely has made a significant contribution to the field, particularly within symbolic interactionism. It is also far more accessible than many other key sociological texts (Foucault for example can be somewhat difficult to understand at first). I would highly recommend this to anyone seeking to improve their sociological knowledge especially as symbolic interactionism has had quite a significant impact in the field.

So, I'll neutralize somewhat this unfortunate evaluation by giving Goffman's masterpiece a five-star rating. And, being a kid is no excuse!

This book, while containing a lot of information, is not to be considered easy reading. The reader is bombarded with an array of sociological terms thus making reading seem endless. Many idea's could have been expressed in a much simplier manner.