The last fifteen years have witnessed an explosion in the popularity, creativity, and productiveness of economic sociology, an approach that traces its roots back to Max Weber. This important new text offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of economic sociology. It also advances the field theoretically by highlighting, in one analysis, the crucial economic roles of both interests and social relations. Richard Swedberg describes the field's critical insights into economic life, giving particular attention to the effects of culture on economic phenomena and the ways that economic actions are embedded in social structures. He examines the full range of economic institutions and explicates the relationship of the economy to politics, law, culture, and gender. Swedberg notes that sociologists too often fail to properly emphasize the role that self-interested behavior plays in economic decisions, while economists frequently underestimate the importance of social relations. Thus, he argues that the next major task for economic sociology is to develop a theoretical and empirical understanding of how interests and social relations work in combination to affect economic action. Written by an author whose name is synonymous with economic sociology, this text constitutes a sorely needed advanced synthesis - and a blueprint for the future of this burgeoning field.

理查德·斯威德伯格，瑞典人，曾任瑞典斯德哥爾摩大學社會學係副教授，現任美國康奈爾大學社會學係教授，專業領域是經濟社會學。

主要著作有：《經濟社會學原理》（2003），《馬剋斯·韋伯及其經濟社會學思想》（1988），《熊彼特傳》（1991），《經濟學與社會學》（1990），《經濟社會學：過去與現在》（1987）等；並與尼爾·斯梅爾策閤編《經濟社會學手冊》（1994），與彼特·赫斯特羅姆閤編《社會機製：一種社會理論的分析的方法》等。