Volume 3, Number 5 · October 22, 1964
The Sociology of Work
By Daniel Bell
Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Worker and His Industry
by Robert Blauner
University of Chicago, 222 pp., $7.50
The Human Shape of Work: Studies in the Sociology of Occupations
edited by Peter L. Berger
Macmillan, 241 pp., $5.95
One can read these books either to discover what sociologists tell us about work in modern, western, non-Communist society, or as problems in the history of ideas—i.e., how sociologists formulate their inquiry. The first approach is the usual one, based on the assumption that we will now be given 'the facts.' But facts depend upon what questions are asked. Only when we have determined the form of his inquiry can we tell whether the investigator has asked the relevant questions. This is particularly true in the case of these two books, since one claims to derive the form of its inquiry from Marx, the other from Max Weber.
Review, 2330 words
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