Personal Sociology

Personal Sociology is one of the most engaging books I’ve read. Nash takes the reader on a journey from the micro to the macro with fearless candor. From Baptisms to Army clerks, from penis implants to Barbershop singing and wrestling, we learn how the self is contextual, embodied, and necessarily tied to the social world. All this is accomplished with personal appeal. It reminds us as sociologists that there is empirical meaning in hovering close to the ground. -- Lori C. Holyfield, University of Arkansas, Little Rock Personal Sociology is one of those books that hooks you after two paragraphs. This book is a gem, and no one who reads it will fail to be impressed by its deep intelligence, wide-ranging scholarship, and passionate humanitarianism. One of the strengths of this book is the parade of insights it affords. Professor Nash shows how endemic personal ambitions, desires, relationships, and conflicts are to any sociological project. His own life may be his but not his alone, and every sociologist will recognize similar patterns in their own sociological career. -- Charles Edgley, University of Arkansas, Little Rock I deeply enjoyed reading this insightful publication that uses creatively personal experiences to enter a grounded qualitative sociological analysis of the varied meanings attached to a diverse range of fundamental aspects of current social life, such as environmental activism, race, and masculinity. -- Thaddeus Müller, Lancaster University, United Kingdom