PREFACE

It was just five or six years ago that people were beginning to talk about the Internet and the Information Revolution. Today, computers and other new technology already play a part in how people entertain themselves, stay in touch with others, shop for everything from gadgets to groceries, teach classes, and study for exams. One can only imagine the extent of the transformation that will unfold over the course of this new century.

Yet there remains a contradiction in calling this the "information age." No one doubts that students have more information available to them than ever before. But who can deny that students (especially young people just out of high school) still know little about their own society and even less about the larger world? It is here that old-fashioned sociology has a crucial part to play. By developing their sociological imagination, we help students see the shape of the society that guides their lives, as well as appreciate ever-present forces of change. This same imagination also lets them place this society in a global context, highlighting the worldwide structures and systems that affect us all.

The daily e-mail I receive from students in the United States and around the world stands as testimony to the power of sociology to transform people's lives. All instructors know the deep satisfaction of making a difference in the lives of our students. Indeed, there is no greater reward for our work, and, in my case, nothing is a better reason for reaching ever further with each new edition of the text. Therefore, I am delighted to offer this revision of Sociology, the discipline's most popular text, and a book thatnever stands still. In the eighth edition, Sociology is now better than ever, and includes an unmatched high-technology learning package.

The heart of this package is, of course, the book. As in the past, this eighth edition of Sociology is authoritative, comprehensive, stimulating, and?as students' daily e-mail messages testify?plain fun to read. This major revision elevates sociology's most popular text to a still higher standard of excellence, and offers an unparalleled resource to today's students as they learn about both our diverse society and the changing world.

But the book is only one part of a complete learning package. Found in the back of every new copy of Sociology, Eighth Edition, is a CD-ROM, included at no additional cost to the student. This CD-ROM is the best of its kind?not only does it contain a full study guide and approximately 80 percent of the textbook, but it also includes fully interactive study features such as author's tip videos, multimedia chapter introductions, interactive maps, video applications, a full glossary, and hundreds of links to Web sites around the world. Simply put, no other CD-ROM offers as much that is as good as this one.

A major innovation in the way students learn in sociology will be our new Sociology Place Web site at. Produced by Peregrine Publishers and Prentice Hall, it is a new supersite for the discipline of sociology and is free to each student who buys a new copy of the textbook. The site has thousands of study questions, video clips, animations, news articles, a career center, a writing center, and a link library. It is updated weekly by our board of editors who are consistently contributing content to make this site a dynamic entity from which students will gain a clearer understanding of the sociological perspective.

In addition, also at no cost to them, students using Sociology, Eighth Edition, can log on to a full-featured Web site at. From the main page, simply click on the cover of the text to access this learning site, which includes chapter overviews and learning objectives, suggested essay questions, and paper topics, as well as multiple-choice and true-false questions that the server will grade, chapter-relevant Web destinations with learning questions, and a chat room where students can share experiences and opinions with others taking the course. Faculty will find a full complement of resources as well, including the syllabus manager system that allows posting a course syllabus to the Internet without having to learn hypertext markup language (HTML); the Prentice Hall server does the work for you.

Textbook, CD-ROM, and Web sites: A three-part, multimedia package that is the foundation for sound learning in this new information age. We invite you to examine all three!