This anthology includes texts from the principal representatives of sociology. Through them, the evolution of this science is illustrated in relation to the development of capitalist society.

At the beginning, Comte, with his intuition about the role of science in modern life; then the apologist bourgeois Spencer and his counterpart, Marx; and Durkheim, who, with his critical stance towards Spencer, closes the first cycle.

At the beginning of the 20th century, we have the German sociologists: Weber, Simmel, and Scheler will interpret the "logic" of money and industrial society with its distant religious prerequisites. Then the iconoclast Veblen, Pareto with his theory of elites, and Michels, who examines the structure of modern parties.

Finally, Mannheim and Marcuse: the former deals with the role of intellectuals today, while the latter wonders where our society is heading.

The included texts are:

First part "The Inevitability of Progress" - Auguste Comte: "The Theory of the Physical Progress of Humanity" - Herbert Spencer: "The Industrial Society" - Karl Marx: "The Immediate Effects of Machine Production on the Worker" - Émile Durkheim: "Organic Solidarity and Conventional Solidarity"

Second part "The Foundations of Industrial Society" - Max Weber: "The Economic Ethics of World Religions" - Georg Simmel: "Money and Lifestyle" - Max Scheler: "The Bourgeois and Religious Forces" - Thorstein Veblen: "The Theory of the Leisure Class"

Third Part "Sociology Against Myths" - Vilfredo Pareto: "The Use of Violence in Society" - Robert Michels: "The Iron Law of Oligarchy" - Karl Mannheim: "The Sociological Problem of the Intelligentsia" - Herbert Marcuse: "One-Dimensional Man".