John Baldwin: George Herbert Mead: A Unifying Theory for Sociology

I had a hard time with this book. It was written by the professor who I had a course with on Pragmatism through Mead. I kept having the vision that this book is the professor’s philosophy and not Mead’s. Mr. Baldwin pulled together various distinct writings of mead and created a unified theory out of it. I was not convinced that the unified theory existed at all in Mead’s mind. It didn’t help the case that the book is very repetitive. The same points are hammered over and over. I can and did believe that Mead was a pragmatist, but I don’t think he would have liked the way my professor joined the pieces together. There were lots of smaller insights and learning that made sense and enhanced my understanding of the world. But as an overall theory it didn’t stand against my tests. The book could have been written in a more concise and comprehensible manner. I don’t think that the length or occasional overly complex language added much value to the basic thesis. Except that this way it was long enough to assign a chapter or two for each week.

• @Amazon