Product Description

A general and systematic account of the role of knowledge in society aimed to stimulate both critical discussion and empirical investigations. This book is concerned with the sociology of ‘everything that passes for knowledge in society’. It focuses particularly on that ‘common-sense knowledge’ which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society. The authors are concerned to present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality. Their development of a theory of institutions, legitimations and socializations has implications beyond the discipline of sociology, and their ‘humanistic’ approach has considerable relevance for other social scientists, historians, philosophers and anthropologists.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70166 in Books
• Published on: 1991-03-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Peter Berger is Professor of Sociology and Theology at Boston University and is Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. Thomas Luckmann is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Constance, Germany.

Customer Reviews

See the world differently
This book is truely an eye opener. It encapsulates the processes by which relationships become typified and charts the formation of institutions as part of the sociology of knowledge. It identifies why we regard things as being objective reality rather than subjective and consequently variable, and has lead the reviewer to question what is imutable and permenant across a range of situations. Truely a great buy.

Thebible of social constructivism
This book is the true classic in the area/stance known as social constructionism, to which it also lends its name. Presenting the explicit view that reality and truth is socially negotiated and maintained between members of societies and groups, Berger & Luckmann built one of the strongest basic pillars in the ongoing dispute between nature and nurture.

"The social construction of reality" is by now a classic, and even though it is written in a light and straightforward tone laced with vivid examples and scenarios, makung it easily accesible to most, it is not a work of popular science aimed at intertaining while it educates. It is simply well written, at times very essay-like and anecdotal, in arguing its main points.

The book has on several occasions been voted among the most influential and inspiring single books by college and universiy students. I myself have used it exessively in the course of my university study, and get surprised by how often it still 'pops up' with great relevance today. It is an important addition to the book-case of anyone with interest humanities, social sciences, or just how the society of man is put together.

Very good, but....
It is very good for a look at the processes of socialization and indoctrination, which creates the character and beliefs of the members of a society, belief system or religion.

However, it ignores the question of human nature, the collection of drives, motives, patters of response and personality which is genetically inherited and part of all of us, and seems to assume, like the ideology of communism, that this is a negligible factor in how societies and individuals think, feel and behave.

As a counterbalance to this absence one should also read Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate".