Economic Sociology Reading List

Economic Sociology Prelims List
July 20, 2012

Notes
This is a minimal list. Though there are occasional exceptions, this list
does not cover important work in related fields most notably
organizations, stratification, gender and labor markets, occupations and
work that are areas of specialization in themselves, and can be prelim
areas of their own. If you are going to be a practicing economic
sociologist, you should be reading in such cognate fields. You are of
course strongly encouraged to read more deeply in economic sociology as
well.
The following collections are useful and may be referenced below
in abbreviated form:
1. Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedberg, editors. The Sociology of Economic Life. Westview Press, Boulder, 2nd edition,
2001.
2. Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt, editors. The Consumer Society Reader. The New Press, New York, 2000.
3. Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, editors, Handbook
of Economic Sociology, 2nd Ed., Princeton University Press,
2005.
Synopses, Overviews and Orientations
Pierre Bourdieu, The Social Structures of the Economy, Polity Press. 2005.
Meghnad Desai. Marxs Revenge: The resurgence of capitalism and the death
of state socialism. Verso, New York, 2002.
Frank Dobbin, Comparative and Historical Approaches to Economic
Sociology, Chapter 2 in Smelser and Swedberg, Handbook of Economic

Sociology 2nd Ed. 2005.

Amitai Etzioni. The Moral Dimension: toward a new economics. Free Press,
New York, NY, 1988.
Albert Hirschman. Rival views of market society. In Rival Views of
Market Society and other recent essays. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA,1992.
Richard Swedberg. Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton Unviersity
Press, Princeton, 2003.
Viviana Zelizer. Beyond the polemics of the market: Establishing a
theoretical and empirical agenda. Sociological Forum, 3:614634, 1988.
Classical Views
Randall Collins. Webers last theory of capitalism: A systematization. American Sociological Review, 45:92540, 1980.
mile Durkheim. The Division of Labor in Society. Free Press, New York,
E
1984, Chapter VII Organic Solidarity and Contractual Solidarity
(pp.149-175).
Karl Marx. Capital: An abridged edition.
New York, 1999.
Oxford University Press,
Karl Polanyi. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic

Origins of Our Time. Beacon Press, Cambridge, MA, 1980.
Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations. Modern Library, New York,
2000, Book I, Chapters 1-8; Book II Chapter ; Book IV Chapter II; Book V
Article 2.
Max Weber. Economy and Society. University of California Press, Berkeley,
1978, 63-211, 302-7, 311-354.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (Any edititon).

Market Exchange
Rene Alemeling, 2007. Selling Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies,
Sperm Banks and the Medical Market in Genetic Material. American
Sociological Review 72(3), pp. 319-340.
Richard Biernacki, 2001. Labor as an Imagined Commodity. Politics
& Society 29: 173-206.
Randall Collins. Weberian Sociological Theory. Cambridge University Press,
New York, 1986, Chapter 5 pp.117-142.
John Davis. Exchange. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1992,
pp.1-46.
Wendy Espeland and Mitchell Stevens. 1998. Comensuration as a Social
Process. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 313-343.
Clifford Geertz. The bazaar economy: Information and search in peasant
marketing. In Granovetter and Swedberg [2001], pages 139145.
Alya Guseva and Akos Rona-Tas. Uncertainty, risk and trust: Russian and
american credit card markets compared. American Sociological Review, 66:
623646, 2001.
Paul Hirsch, Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set
Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems. American Journal of Sociology
77(4), 1972, pp. 639-659.
Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetch, and Richard Thaler. Fairness as a
constraint on profit seeking: Entitlements in the market. American
Economic Review, 76:72841, 1986.
Charles E. Lindblom. The Market System. Yale University Press, New
Haven, CT, 2002, pp.1-51.
Stewart Macaulay. Non-contractual relations in business: A preliminary
study. In Granovetter and Swedberg, The Sociology of Economic Life [2001],
pages 191206.

Donald MacKenzie and Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory: The
Historical Sociology of a Financial Derivatives Exchange, American Journal of Sociology
109 (1): 107-145 (2003).
Thomas Schelling. Micromotives and Macrobehavior.Norton, 1978, pp.1-43.
Viviana Zelizer. The Social Meaning of Money. Basic Books, New York,
NY, 1994.
Embeddedness
Paul DiMaggio and Hugh Louch. Socially embedded consumer transactions:
For what kinds of purchases do people most often use networks? American
Sociological Review, 63:619637, 1998.
Lauren Edelman and Robin Stryker, A Sociological Approach to Law and
the Economy, Chapter 23 in Smelser and Swedberg, ed.. Handbook of
Economic Sociology, 2nd Ed.
Gsta Esping-Andersen. The Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies.
Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999
Peter B. Evans. 1989. Predatory, Developmental and Other Apparatuses:
A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State.
Sociological Forum 4(4): 561-87.
Marion Fourcade. 2006. The Construction of a Global Profession: The
Transnationalization of Economics. American Journal of Sociology 112:
145-94.
Mark Granovetter. Economic action and social structure: The problem
of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology 91(3): 481-510.
Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner. Embeddedness and immigration:
Notes on the social determinants of economic action. In Granovetter and
Swedberg [2001], pages 112138.
Margaret Somers and Fred Block, From Poverty to Perversity: Ideas,
Markets and Institutes over 200 years of Welfare Debates. American
Sociological Review 70(2) 2005, pp. 260-287.

Brian Uzzi. Social structure and competition in interfirm networks:

The paradox of embeddedness. In Granovetter and Swedberg [2001], pages
207240.
Robert Wuthnow. Poor Richards Principle: Recovering the American
Dream Through the Moral Dimension of Work, Business and Money.
Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996, pp.168-205.
Jane Zavisca. Housing in the New Russia, Cornell University Press, 2012.
Social and Cultural Capital
Mitchel Abolafia. Making
Cambridge, 1996, Chapter 1.
Markets.
Harvard
University
Press,
Pierre Bourdieu. Distinction. Harvard University Press, Cambridge,

MA, 1984, Chapters 1-5; Conclusion.
Nan Lin.
Social Capital: A theory of structure
Cambridge University Press, New York, 2002.
and action.
Alejandro Portes. Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern

sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24:????, 1998.
Modern Capitalism
Janet Abu-Lughod. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D.
1250-1350. Oxford University Press, New York,1991.
Michael Burawoy and Janos Lukacs.
Mythologies of work: A
comparison of firms in state socialism and advanced capitalism. American
Sociological Review, 50:72337, 1987.
Alfred Chandler. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in
American Business. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971.
Yves Dezalay and Byant G. Garth. The Internationalization of Palace Wars:
Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002.

Frank Dobbin. Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain

and France in the Railway Age. Cambridge University Press, New York,
1994.
Neil Fligstein. The Architecture of Markets. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 2001, pp.25-98, 147-169.
Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas and Sarah Babb. The rebirth of the liberal
creed: Paths to neoliberalism in four countries. American Journal of Sociology, 108(3), 2002.
Gary Hamilton and Nicole Woolsey Biggart. Market, culture and
authority: A comparative analysis of management and organization in the
far east. In Granovetter and Swedberg [2001], pages 444478.
Greta Krippner, The Financialization of the American Economy, SocioEconomic Review 3 (2), 173-2008 (2005).
Douglass North. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic
Performance. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990, pp.1-69.
Kenneth Pomeranz. The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the making
of the modern world economy. Princeton University Press, 2000.
William Roy. Socializing Capital: The rise of the large industrial
corporation in America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997.
Wolfgang Streeck, E Pluribus Unum? The Varieties of Capitalism, in
Granovetter and Swedberg, ed. The Sociology of Economic Life, 2001.
Eleanor Westney. Innovation and Imitation: The transfer of Western organizational patterns to Meiji Japan. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, 1987.
The Structure of Competition
Ronald S. Burt.

Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition.

6
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992.

Rakesh Khurana. 2002. Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational
Quest for Charismatic CEOs, Princeton University Press, pp. 1-50.
Eric Leifer and Harrison White. A structural approach to markets. In Mark
Mizruchi and Michael Schwartz, editors, Structural Analysis of Business,
pages 85108. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.
Jeffrey J. Sallaz. 2011. Politics of Organizational Adornment, American
Sociological Review 76(1), pp. 99-119.
Harrison White. Markets from Networks. Princeton University Press, 2002.

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Economic Sociology Prelims List

July 20, 2012

Sociology 2nd Ed. 2005.

Oxford University Press,

Karl Polanyi. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic

Brian Uzzi. Social structure and competition in interfirm networks:

Pierre Bourdieu. Distinction. Harvard University Press, Cambridge,

Alejandro Portes. Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern

Frank Dobbin. Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain

Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition.

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992.

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