Critical Rural Theory

Alexander R. Thomas is associate professor of sociology at SUNY College at Oneonta. He is also the author of The Evolution of the Ancient City: Urban Theory and the Archaeology of the Fertile Crescent. Brian Lowe is assistant professor of sociology at SUNY College at Oneonta. Greg Fulkerson is assistant professor of sociology at SUNY College at Oneonta. Polly Smith is assistant professor of sociology at Utica College.

With regard to the discipline, the authors give a nice overview of the somewhat puzzling ‘retreat from the rural’ of mainstream sociology in the early 20th century and the resulting ‘urban bias.’ They focus somewhat less on the parallel development and divergences of ‘rural’ and ‘regular’ (urbancentric) sociology as quasi-independent fields, complete with separate scholarly organizations and intellectual orientations. Interestingly they also point to the recent retreat from the rural among departments formerly known as rural, now identified variously as some combination of ‘development,’ ‘community,’ or ‘environmental’ sociology. . . . I found much in the book to recommend. . . . I hope that this book will be of interest and use to a broad range of sociologists—and not only those who are already interested in the rural.

• Chapter 1: What is Rural? Part 2 Part I: Structure Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Rural Political Economy Chapter 4 Chapter 3: Rural Space Part 5 Part II: Space Chapter 6 Chapter 4: Structuration in the Catskills Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Space and Simulacra Part 8 Part III: Culture Chapter 9 Chapter 6: Rural Representations Chapter 10 Chapter 7: Urbanormativity Chapter 11 Chapter 8: Structure, Space, and Culture Chapter 12 Appendix A: Catskill Urbanization Scale Chapter 13 Appendix B: Comparing Downtowns