Human Institutions

In recent years 'the New Institutionalism' has focused more on organizations in their social and cultural environments than on societal-level institutional systems. Thus, missing from these studies has been a larger sociological analysis of institutions, per se. In his newest book, leading social theorist Jonathan H. Turner offers a creative, richly grounded reinterpretation of social evolution. He ressurrects a level of analysis undertaken by earlier functionalist theorists, but with a new-found emphasis—that of discovering the larger forces driving the formation of human institutional systems. Only by exploring the larger macro-dynamics can the institutions of economy, kinship, religion, polity, law, and education be fully understood, as Turner persuasively shows in this magesterial explication of twenty millenia of human social life.

In his newest book, leading social theorist Jonathan H. Turner offers a creative, richly grounded reinterpretation of social evolution.

Jonathan H. Turner is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at University of California, Riverside. Among his many influential books is the recently published Face to Face: Toward a Sociological Theory of Interpersonal Behavior (2002).