Customer Reviews

Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective

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Berger discusses the role and place of sociology in the modern world. He stresses sociological consciousness--seeing how macro structures shape individuals. He shows how what we think to be our long-standing social traditions and norms are really just arbitrarily socially constructed. Here he expands on the debunking tendecy of sociology to question our commonly accepted assumptions about the social world.

There are great examples of how society forms us internally and surrounds us externally. Berger demonstrates the different sociological perspectives as well as touching lightly on the differnt theorists (Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, etc.). In showing how one is boxed in by social forces, he uses a great metaphor of a person who stands in the center of concentric circles of social control (law, state, occupation, race, class, family, religion, etc.). Society also shapes us internally by providing systems of meaning, or ideologies, that help us make sense of the world.

He relates sociology not only to the social sciences but to the humanities and philosophy. The ethical considerations for sociological research are looked at in "Sociological Machiavellianism". The overall theme is that society limits freedom and individuals should question tradition by debunking the established order. Easy and interesting, he makes sociology relevant to everyday life.

In spite of its relatively advanced age, this book has retained its charm and overall validity. I had read it when it first came out, over 25 years ago. On re-reading I realized why it had captivated me then. It is closely argued, well balanced and highly informative. Furthermore, it is written in good English, something rare for sociology textbooks. It is too bad that the author has not thought of a new edition, updating and refreshing it. I'd recommend it very highly for anybody wishing to find out what is sociology all about.

Even with bright students (I am assuming some I have had are among the bright) there are problems with this book. It was a required text for my Sociology course in my student days and I have a fondness for what it did to me in leading me on to PB's "The Social Construction of Reality". SCR is clearly too difficult for most students and Invitation is much more accessible. Still, I have found students to be aghast at some of the expressions that clearly place it as a book of the sixties. On the other hand, I have not found a more accessible book that describes the postmodern point of view -- the view of sociology -- in as successful a way as this one. I therefore present it along with an explanation. It would be great if Peter Berger readdresses this invitation to new students with an update that incorporates politically correct language. The change in perspective is a tough experience. It would help if the language used were not an additional barrier.

I am still looking for a new book that will do the same thing to new students that this book did to me.

Before reading this book I was not a sociology student. After this book I realized that we are all students of sociology, some better than others. The better ones live in more freedom, more understanding, seeing through walls of the fortress that our society is. Everything looks so normal, until you start to dissect.

This is a short book, PACKED with information. Berger's English is superb. It flows naturally with creative sentence formations and use of vocabulary.

If you find yourself discouraged, you may skip the first chapter. I found it least interesting of them all. Chapters following are great and will keep you glued to your reading chair.

To read this book is to revisit the notion that clarity is reachable if one keeps to the "big" ideas. This book provides a hatrack to place many disparate ideas one has floating around about the connection between the social world and the psychological imprint it generates. This book may appear simple and sometimes lacking in depth but there is a reason it has lasted all these years

Each new sociology student must read this book during his or her first year into the discipline, and each sociologist must read this book (or the notes he made in the past about it) once every couple years. Peter Berger wrote one of the most compelling treatises into a social science, bridging theme with emotion, intellectual associations, nice metaphors and analogies and a wealth of humor.

The first chapter ("Sociology as an individual pastime") stands alone as an excellent introduction to the science of society. Berger invites us here to a party where the sociologist meets with a plethora of intellectuals and finally succeeds to transcend as a different and respectable member of the scientific community. If something, this chapter alone is worth the reading of the book. Shoots at the American academy coherent with Berger's (and ours) admiration for Thosrtein Veblen are combined with an un-dissimulated hate for all complete non-critical systems of belief, including organized religion, 20th Century communism, free-market capitalism and psychoanalysis. The tendencies known in the field at the start of the sixties are only deepened now, and so the critical words Berger throws at statistical reductionism are completely current: "in science as in love a concentration on technique is quite likely to lead to impotence" [p.13]. What there isn't to love in that?

At the same time Berger is preoccupied to maintain values and beliefs far from the scientific logic of a social science. How you can be a humanist if your values must be maintained outside of your field of competence? Well, sociology teaches us about the relativity of institutions. Freedom is considered to be inscrutable to science, but given the sociological perspective, it can be reached. So sociological thought is indispensable for the possibility of a free existence, and so becomes humanist in front of the supposedly unbreakable laws of social reality. Given that this is only a "perspective", this knowledge about society could also be used against or fellow men, and Berger is completely aware of that in an epoch so close to the age of totalitarism.

Peter Berger is extremly succesful in "invitation to sociology". With clear exemples,he makes Sociology be something easy and fascinating to be studied.-Highly recommended

Berger's "Invitation to Sociology" was the book that inspired me to change my major from philosophy to sociology at university. It is an eloquent account of what sociology is, what studying it involves and how it can aid one in understanding human life. Gently guiding the reader through the major theories and theorists of sociology, it shows how a sociological perspective can illumine and enrich our perceptions of everyday taken-for-granted occurances. In many ways, it reflects its context of early sixties America in that it links the discipline up with many of the concerns of the popular existentialist mood of the time. This is certainly not a weakness of the book, but in many ways a strength. For it is not a textbook of sociology as such, but rather an attempt to educate the wider public. As such it could have borishly taken itself far too seriously. But a lightness of touch and an endearing, self-depreciating manner stop it from doing this. There are many things that I disagree with in this book - such as the author's persistent claim that sociology should privilege no convictional or moral viewpoints - but it is always charitable and fair with views it dosen't concur with. After reading the book, I felt that my outlook on life had been fundamentally enriched. By all means read it if you're studying sociology or if you just want to be more informed.

I teach a course in the sociology of education to master's students from a broad range of majors. Few if any have been introduced to sociology as a discipline that might have value, even changing the way they view the world.

Berger's text, though now in print for forty-five years, remains the best introductory text available. The first five chapters are priceless, demonstrating that not all of human behavior can be reduced to psychology or social psychology or strength of will, but that institutions -- structured social practices -- are at work at all levels, determining not just what we do but who we are, as well.

As with all his work, Berger's prose style is impeccable: easy to read but not dumbed-down. He writes like the cosmopolitan intellectual that he is, and students appreciate his sophistication. (With a bit of forewarning, they forgive him his archaic references to computer punch cards and other anachronisms.)

After students have read Invitation to Sociology, they are less likely to engage in victim-blaming, both for others and for themselves. They acknowledge instead that social contexts vary in ways that demonstrably provide advantages to some while diminishing the prospects of others. Social determinism becomes real, something that they can see for themselves.

Remarkably, some are able to see that free will may be a convenient fiction, something we use to get through the day in a way that makes the world seem sensible. Social determinism, however, works its will whether we recognize it or not.

Let's hope this book never goes out of print.

It wasn't until after I majored in sociology that I actually got around to reading the works of Perter L. Berger, although I had studied many works citing his, and Thomas Luckmann. This book is in my opinion the very best introduction to sociology I have read. Berger has a unique ability to articulate the fundamentals of sociology, the "sociological perspective" that has often been misunderstood and underappreciated in the world of the social sciences. This book is important to read by anyone in the social science fields, either sociology, psychology etc. Even if you have studied sociology extensively already, this book is still worth reading. Berger's dialectic theory of social reality construction is explicated, and also he discusses implications like existentialism of Sartre and other philosophical issues. A great book overall!! I also suggest his other books too, they are all great!