This collection of recent essays by the influential sociologist Herbert J. Gans brings together the many themes of Gans's wide-ranging career to make the case for a policy-oriented vision of sociology. Sociology and Social Policy presents a range of studies that explicate and help solve social problems by studying what people, institutions, and social structures do with, for, and against one another. These works from across Gans's major areas of study-the city, poverty, ethnicity, employment and political economy, and the relationship between race and class-together make a powerful call to action for the field of sociology.

How good to have this exceptionally stimulating collection of essays that deploy decades of learning to probe fundamental challenges of political economy, race, and bases of identity. Written by a master sociologist in his characteristically lucid, accessible prose, these deep and compelling ruminations offer challenges to thought and action on every page. -- Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University These essays remind us of the balance and the wonderful clarity and compassion that inform all of Gans's work on urban and other social problems. And they remain acutely insightful and compelling at this perilous moment in American history. -- Frances Fox Piven, the Graduate Center, City University of New York Herbert J. Gans is among the most original and prolific students of American urban society. For over fifty years, he has taken up some of the nation's most vexing problems-racism, poverty, immigration-writing with clarity, urgency, and keen intelligence. In my own work, I find myself going back to Gans again and again, learning something new each time. Uncompromising yet pragmatic, clear-eyed yet hopeful, this brilliant new collection of essays is essential reading. -- Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City A valuable reader for undergraduate classes in urban, economic, and race sociology, as well as a book valuable to policy analysts and makers. A great contribution to the field. -- Deirdre Oakley, Georgia State University

Herbert J. Gans is Robert S. Lynd Professor Emeritus of sociology at Columbia University. His many books include People, Plans, and Policies: Essays on Poverty, Racism, and Other National Urban Problems (1991) and The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community (Legacy Edition, 2017), both from Columbia University Press.