Best-Sellers by Sociologists: An Exploratory Study

Sociology's support from the general public, in its taxpayer and other roles, depends in significant part on how informative that public finds sociology, and what uses it can make of the discipline's work. Since one of the many things we do for various sectors of the general public is to inform its reading members through our books and nonjournal articles, this study aims to determine what sociology that general public has read and is reading, and it takes a first cut at answering that question by estimating sociology's bestselling books. The study is about sales, not readership, and this article reports 53 titles that have sold over 50,000 copies.1 The identification of these titles turned out to be a difficult empirical problem, and discussion of the study must thus begin with a report on methods. What books by sociologists have been read most often by the general public can really only be answered by a readership study among a sample of that public. What I have done instead, and as a very exploratory effort, is to ask a large number of editors at commercial and university presses, and authors, about the sales of sociological books other than texts and classics.