Synopses & Reviews
Letandrsquo;s set the scene: thereandrsquo;s a regular on his bar-stool, beer in hand. Heandrsquo;s watching a young couple execute a complicated series of moves on the dance floor, while at the table in the corner the DJ adjusts his headphones and slips a new beat into the mix. These are all experiences created by a given sceneandmdash;one where we feel connected to other people, in places like a bar or a community center, a neighborhood parish or even a train station. Scenes enable experiences, but they also cultivate skills, create ambiances, and nourish communities.
In Scenescapes, Daniel Aaron Silver and Terry Nichols Clark examine the patterns and consequences of the amenities that define our streets and strips. They articulate the core dimensions of the theatricality, authenticity, and legitimacy of local scenesandmdash;cafes, churches, restaurants, parks, galleries, bowling alleys, and more. Scenescapes not only reimagines cities in cultural terms, it details how scenes shape economic development, residential patterns, and political attitudes and actions. In vivid detail and with wide-angle analysesandmdash;encompassing an analysis of 40,000 ZIP codesandmdash;Silver and Clark give readers tools for thinking about place; tools that can teach us where to live, work, or relax, and how to organize our communities.
Synopsis
Gabriel Tarde ranks as one of the most outstanding sociologists of nineteenth-century France, though not as well known by English readers as his peers Comte and Durkheim. This book makes available Tardes most important work and demonstrates his continuing relevance to a new generation of students and thinkers.
Tardes landmark research and empirical analysis drew upon collective behavior, mass communications, and civic opinion as elements to be explained within the context of broader social patterns. Unlike the mass society theorists that followed in his wake, Tarde integrated his discussions of societal change at the macrosocietal and individual levels, anticipating later twentieth-century thinkers who fused the studies of mass communications and public opinion research.
Terry N. Clarks introduction, considered the premier guide to Tardes opus, accompanies this important work, reprinted here for the first time in forty years.
Synopsis
Familiar urban sights: the pub regular on his stool, beer mug in hand, or the young couple shining out on the dance floor, or the improvising musicians in a jazz cluband#151;these are experiences created by a given scene, where we feel connected to others in places like the community center, neighborhood parish, or even the efficiently functioning train station. Scenes enable experience, but they also cultivate skills, create ambiances, and nourish commitments. A scene that encourages personal self-expression turns out to mean stronger wage growth for tech firms associated with that scene, but also higher rents, and more jobs. This book deals in vivid detail with scenes as local styles of life (including an analysis of 40,000 zip codes). The idea of and#147;sceneand#8221; is a powerful tool for understanding how and why places grow and change. There are many terrific case studies here but also comparative data sets which show the role of culture in local economic growth, patterns of residence, and politics. The authors ask us to consider how specific place characteristic combine into an aesthetic view of place, what is the style of life, the spirit, the meaning, the mood expressed in scenes. They give us tools for thinking about place and for deciding where to live, where to work, where to relax, where to organize communities . . . .
About the Author
Gabriel Tarde (1843–1904) was one of the founding fathers of sociology. Terry N. Clark is professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and the editor, coeditor, and coauthor of numerous books. Morris Janowitz (1919–1988) was a noted twentieth-century American sociologist and political scientist.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction by Terry N. Clark
I. THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY
1. Sociology
2. Economics and Sociology
3. Sociology, Social Psychology, and Sociologism
4. A Debate with Emile Durkheim
II. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY
5. Basic Principles
6. Invention
7. Opposition
III. THE LAWS OF IMITATION
8. Logical Laws of Imitation
9. Extra-Logical Laws of Imitiation
10. Process of Imitation
IV. PERSONALITY AND ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT
11. Belief and Desire
V. METHODOLOGY, METHODS, AND QUANTIFICATION
12. Empirical Bases of Sociological Theory
13. Quantification and Social Indicators
VI. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
14. The Origins and Functions of Elites
VII. SOCIAL CONTROL AND DEVIANCE
15. Criminal Youth
VIII. COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR
16. The Public aand the Crowd
IX. PUBLIC OPINION, MASS COMMUNICATIONS, AND PERSONAL INFLUENCE
17. Opinion and Conversation
BIBLIOGRAPHY