There are approximately 200 nations on Earth, and the social sciences are being practiced in each one, yet too little of this global enterprise is known to Western, particularly American, social scientists. Drawing upon five years of experience as Editor-in-Chief of a major international encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, James D. Wright provides social scientists a representative sampling of the work of their international colleagues.
The volume includes investigations into a myriad of questions. How have Muslims accommodated to life in Western societies? What were the demographic consequences of World War I? What are the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of hosting a cruise ship terminal? Has the situation of Honduran street children improved in the past two decades? What is the state of public health in Africa? Wright shows how social scientists outside the United States have answered all of these questions and many more.
From efforts at historical preservation in the People's Republic of China to the sexual abuse of children in New Zealand, and from earthquake research in Japan to network jihadi terrorism, The Global Enterprise includes research that will intrigue anyone interested in what social scientists contribute to our understanding of contemporary social trends and advances, both locally and globally. Key research is underway in social science around the world, and it is far past time that Western social scientists learned of and learned from these findings.
James D. Wright is an author, educator, and the Provost's Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. He has written twenty-eight books and research monographs, most recently Lost Souls: Manners and Morals in Contemporary American Society (Routledge, 2018), and more than 300 journal articles, book chapters, essays, reviews, and polemics.
Searching for reliable knowledge about human behavior and social reality, and savoring the promise of generalizations and even universal laws, we often wish we could speak in languages other than our own and live in societies and cultures other than our own. Through the magic of film and sabbatical, we glimpse a little of that wider world. Now James D. Wright, Editor-in-Chief of the monumental International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition (2015), has provided a sampling of 25 original essays, each discussing a recent research article written by a non-U.S. scholar, based on non-U.S. data, and published in non-U.S. journals, and each summary is accompanied by Wright's valuable context and insight. The result is an intellectual feast. A Baedeker to the global soul of social science. I will not again visit topic or country in Wright's book without taking the relevant chapter.
Guillermina Jasso, Silver Professor and Professor of Sociology, New York University