Putting a book like this together can be difficult. However, we had a great time putting this one together because of the excellent people we worked with. Our first thanks to the contributing authors. They are all fine scholars and, more than that, professionals. They took our criticism and requests for revision with good humour and grace. Needless to say, the book could not have existed without their scholarship, creativity, hard work and co-operation. The resulting book is, of course, imperfect but we accept responsibility for the flaws that remains We hope the book will achieve the purpose for which it was written: namely, to better inform our students, a new generation of sociologists, about the history, goals and methods of this most interesting enterprise in which we share, the discipline of sociology.