Description
Book SynopsisExamines how structural forms spontaneously arise from social relationships. Offering major insights into the building blocks of social life, this book identifies which locally emergent structures have the capacity to grow into larger ones.
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2010 Theory Prize, American Sociological Association "While his interest in structures has a venerable lineage, Martin's approach is highly distinctive... The book is without doubt an eclectic, ambitious, provocative, sophisticated, and instructive undertaking... Social Structures deserves a wide readership and its ideas a sympathetic hearing."--Science "Martin provides an accessible and workable perspective as he examines the array of social structures, from the smaller, such as cliques or family, to the larger construct of nation... In short, this is an excellent book, substantive in supporting Martin's claims as well as provocative in terms of generating further inquiry. Readers will find Martin's perspective both intriguing and well supported."--Choice "[R]ather than giving the impression of being the beginning of a new, exciting research program, Social Structures rather feels like a well-deserving closing chapter for the project of a specifically 'sociological' form of structuralist explanation."--Omar Lizardo, Sociologica "Social Structures is illuminating--good to think with and fun to argue with. It belongs on a short shelf of important contributions to structural theories of society."--Paul DiMaggio, American Journal of Sociology
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Preface: From Big Structures to Small ix Chapter 1: Introduction: Social Action and Structures 1 Chapter 2: From a Small Circle of Friends to a Long Line of Rivals 26 Chapter 3: The Preservation of Equality through Exchange Structures 72 Chapter 4: The Institutionalization of Inequality: Pecking Orders 104 Chapter 5: The Escape from Comparability and the Genesis of Influence Structures 151 Chapter 6: The Short Cut to Structure with Patronage Pyramids 189 Chapter 7: The Institution of Transitivity and the Production of Command Structures 232 Chapter 8: From Pyramid to Party 283 Chapter 9: From Structures to Institutions 321 References 343 Index 383
