Freud and American Sociology

$64.95 (cloth); $22.95 (paper) Sociologists like myself, committed to the sociological psychologies of Durkheim, Mead, and Goffman, have, at one time or another, wrestled with the formidable fig-ure of Freud. Having studied psychoanalytic theory closely, we have opted to leave Freud behind, certain that his ideas conflicted with social and interactionist theories about mind and self. Reading Philip Manning’s Freud and American Sociology has unsettled these long-standing convictions of mine. Even for those like me who choose to stand outside the “theological structure ” known as psychoanalysis, Man-ning makes a strong case for bringing sociology back into conversation with psycho-analysis, as a reservoir of ideas and insights from which sociology can draw. 1 An important work of social theory as well as of the history of U.S. sociology, this book principally addresses qualitative sociologists writing ethnographies, particu