Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Including the Original Index to Basic Sociological Concepts (Heritage of Society)

Robert Ezra Park, an American sociologist, is credited with making American sociology more empirical and less theoretical than its European counterpart. He was a leading figure in the so-called Chicago School of sociology. The department of sociology at the University of Chicago trained a large number of sociologists in the 1920s and 1930s; it show more emphasized the study of crime and of urban neighborhoods. Park's students made Chicago into a "social laboratory." They went out into its streets to look at their physical and social surroundings and then produced outstanding monographs on the conditions of urban life. Park co-authored with Ernest W. Burgess the most influential text in sociology of the time. With his student R. D. McKenzie, he adapted the concepts of animal ecology to the study of the city - invasion, succession, dominance, and so on. They coined the term "human ecology" and published a number of now-famous maps of Chicago, showing by means of concentric circles the morphology of the city's growth. (Bowker Author Biography) show less