The 10 Best Sociology Textbooks

Editor's Notes

February 13, 2020:

On the face of it, sociology seems like a soft option, but once students dig into the subject they find out quickly just how complex it is. Textbooks have to cover naturally contentious issues, like inequality, crime, abuse, diversity, social status, how minorities are treated, and much more. Because of this, we did our best to supply books that are as balanced as possible, however, some texts, like The Real World, still allow some bias to come through.

We feel that that can actually be a good thing when the book is read by more advanced students because they can then use sociological thinking to deconstruct where that bias comes from and make their own interpretations. Still, we kept works that lean too far in any direction to a minimum. For more insight into the field, we recommend picking up a few social science books to see how sociology is intertwined with psychology, economics, law, and politics.

Today we brought several volumes up to their most recent editions. That includes The Real World, Sociology: The Essentials, Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, and Introduction to Sociology. We also said goodbye to Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in favor of The Family, which touches on many of the same concepts, but uses an extremely interesting and coherent approach to do so. We also removed Essentials of Sociology and replaced it with Sociology: A Down-To-Earth Approach, the better fleshed out, more recent and revised edition by the same author.