This thin academic text is an effort to move sleep out of unconsciousness and into sociology. Williams includes an overview of other writers on sleep: historically, culturally, sociologically, scientifically, medically. He includes a very little, cautiously, about infants and children. Williams is chatty without wasting your time. He speculates a bit about where medicine and society are headed with sleep (especially sleep clinics and sleep medicine working with sleep in a pathological sense, moving away from the sleep lab). A worthwhile introduction to the field, and a good starting point for finding more sources. ( )