Joseph Berger is Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. His most recent publication is Sociological Theories in Progress: New Formulations (co-editor with Morris Zelditch, Jr., and Bo Anderson). Morris Zelditch, Jr., is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Stanford University.

"A unique and important contribution to sociological theory. The editors have brought together a set of successful case studies of theoretical methods illustrated through the development of substantive research programs. All are subsumed under the broad topic of group process, but the substantive areas differ dramatically. . . . Very few case studies of metatheoretical and theoretical strategies exist, and this uniqueness is one reason the book is so important."—Contemporary Sociology