The Sense of Sociability

Are human beings a species in constant need of firm, aggressive government to save us from ourselves? Or are we fundamentally sociable beings, woven together in a complex array of networks, interdependent and willing to work together? The Sense of Sociability is a modern, highly readable, and often idiosyncratic look at human sociability by one of Canada's top sociologists. Lorne Tepperman explores why we have difficulty getting along, and why in spite of these difficulties we still manage for the most part to live together. Without interference from poor government and other malign influences, he argues, people can work out a great deal of their lives themselves. Tepperman, one of Canada's foremost sociologists, sees it as his job to look at our "unwashed" history to reveal how ordinary people doing ordinary things is the process that makes human history.