Social Structures is a book that examines how structural forms spontaneously arise from social relationships. Offering major insights into the building blocks o

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (Ge

He develops a theory that predicts how such institutions evolve and characterizes their welfare properties.

Written and compiled by friends and former students, The Idea of Social Structure honors Robert K. Merton, considered one of the premier sociologists of the twe