SOURCE: A review of Sociology As an Art Form, in Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 12, No. 4, fall, 1979, pp. 274-77.

In the following review of Sociology as an Art Form, Burch finds value in Nisbet's insights and analogies, which give a new perspective to old issues.

Sociology is an art form. Indeed, in combination with television, pop sociology may be the principal rhetorical art of our times. For example, the mass media commission public opinion polls so that Walter Cronkite can explain to us how our membership in certain regions, age classes, gender, income groups and ethnic groups affect the reasons why we like or dislike Presidents or other political commodities.

In the world of pop sociology there is an artful blurring of reality, celebrity, fiction and fact. Indeed, the media invent events which become careers. In the 1960's sociologist D. P. Moynihan explained why black families were not like...