Society: The Basics

Society: The Basics

By: John J. Macionis  

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Average Customer Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Publisher: Prentice Hall

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Are you kidding me? - After reading the first chapter of this book, I couldn't help but think is this what kind of education I am paying for? The poster who wrote that this is racial propaganda was being modest. This is communist BS. If you are white, you are rich and powerful trying to keep everyone down, if you are black you are poor and have no options, if you are Mexican you are unwanted...etc. This is stereotyping at its finest and the author doesn't understand that stereotyping goes beyond the meathead comments like "everybody knows you have to be black to play basketball". The author also gives an explanation of how racially divided sports like basketball and football (professionally) and has the audacity to state that the vast profits sports generate are controlled by a small number of people (predominantly white men).

The cynicism has stripped any credibility for me. The author could have stated something positive about how well blacks are at these sports and the majority of blacks in football and basketball is due to them outperforming others in their area and I guess multi-million dollar a year contracts are chicken feed. I get tired of this racial division being forced down throats of young Americans during their education. This type of material is moving to divide America through people who buy into this stuff. It reinforces stereotypes, creates hatred and cynicism from everyone's perspective, and doesn't even remotely give the impression that America is a great nation and place to live. This material is pounded into people's minds so much throughout their education that they start believing it and forget about the opportunities out there for all Americans.

I will do what a previous poster said they would do--throw it in the bonfire when I am done!

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
sent me the wrong edition - I purchased 978-0-13-228490-5 the 9th edition. they sent me the 5th edition!!!! They totally screwed up my semester....

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Thanks! - Book was in great shape; I would have liked shipping to be a little faster though.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Wrong edition - the text arrived in good condition and promptly. My only issue was it was the wrong edition.

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Thorough Disappointment - I felt as if Macionis was trying to be uber-apologetic for what he believed are sins of the white race. I feel that he negatively stereotypes whites and Asian-Americans, bashes anthropological research, quotes himself too much, and contradicts his quotes and the quotes of sociology's greats. These faults will be obvious to anyone who processes the material rather than just memorizing for testing purposes.

Macionis emphasizes Weber's fundamental belief that when a sociologist adds their own values to their work they have moved into the political realm. He is guilty of this throughout the text. His latent function of education section is very entertaining (sarcasm). The only positive thing I can say about the book is that I was introduced to the real sociologists: Berger, Weber, Merton, Durkheim, Parsons, Liazos, etc.

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