Robert Zussman – författare

In riveting case studies, Robert Zussman describes how medical decisions in ICUs are considered and reconsidered, made and remade, negotiated and renegotiated. He concentrates on the practice of medical ethics, on the ways in which right and wrong are interpreted and used in the ward--how definitions of right and wrong emerge from the social situations of patients, families, doctors, and nurses and from the workings of hospitals and the courts. His book is a portrait of the way careful planning is undermined by the unpredictability of illness and the persistence of self-interest, by high principle and curious compromise.

In 2004, Michael Burawoy, speaking as president of the American Sociological Association, generated far-reaching controversy when he issued an ambitious and impassioned call for a 'public sociology'. Burawoy argued that sociology should speak beyond the university, engaging with social movements and deepening an understanding of the historical and social context in which they exist. In this volume, renowned sociologists come together to debate the perils and the potentials of Burawoy's challenge. The contributors include Andrew Abbott, Michael Burawoy, Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Sharon Hays, Douglas Massey, Joya Misra, Orlando Patterson, Frances Fox Piven, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Judith Stacey, Arthur Stinchcombe, Alain Touraine, Immanuel Wallerstein, William Julius Wilson, and Robert Zussman.

Mechanics of the Middle Class: Work and Politics Among American Engineers by Robert Zussman offers a rich sociological portrait of engineers as a defining stratum of the American middle class. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork in two contrasting industries—traditional metalworking and advanced electronics—Zussman examines how engineers navigate their dual identity as both labor and management. The book explores what engineers do on the job, what they know, and how they relate to authority, collective organization, and career mobility. In doing so, it situates engineers within broader debates on professionalization, proletarianization, and the politics of technical work, showing how their daily practices illuminate tensions between autonomy and control, expertise and hierarchy.Far from being mere technicians, engineers emerge here as central actors in the organization of industrial life and in the politics of the middle class. Zussman shows how their work connects questions of labor process to issues of citizenship, family, and community. He also traces the historical development of engineering, from its roots in craft and civil works to its role in modern research-driven corporations, highlighting the cultural and political meanings attached to technical knowledge. By combining detailed workplace ethnography with broader analysis of class and ideology, Mechanics of the Middle Class reframes the engineer not only as a builder of machines, but as a builder of social order itself.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

Mechanics of the Middle Class: Work and Politics Among American Engineers by Robert Zussman offers a rich sociological portrait of engineers as a defining stratum of the American middle class. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork in two contrasting industries—traditional metalworking and advanced electronics—Zussman examines how engineers navigate their dual identity as both labor and management. The book explores what engineers do on the job, what they know, and how they relate to authority, collective organization, and career mobility. In doing so, it situates engineers within broader debates on professionalization, proletarianization, and the politics of technical work, showing how their daily practices illuminate tensions between autonomy and control, expertise and hierarchy.Far from being mere technicians, engineers emerge here as central actors in the organization of industrial life and in the politics of the middle class. Zussman shows how their work connects questions of labor process to issues of citizenship, family, and community. He also traces the historical development of engineering, from its roots in craft and civil works to its role in modern research-driven corporations, highlighting the cultural and political meanings attached to technical knowledge. By combining detailed workplace ethnography with broader analysis of class and ideology, Mechanics of the Middle Class reframes the engineer not only as a builder of machines, but as a builder of social order itself.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

What is the relationship between work and family in a world where employment creates endless tensions for families and families create endless tensions for the workplace? This collection of articles broadens this discussion by addressing issues from the perspectives of often neglected populations: from white middle-class women with young children to people of colour, to poor families, to the families gays and lesbians are struggling to construct, to fathers and to older children. To discuss work and family is also to discuss gender. Ranging from California's Silicon Valley to a remote fishing village, part one shows how new work arrangements have created new expectations for what it means to be a woman or a man, and how slow and uneven the pace of change can be. Nowhere are the tensions of work and family more potent than around childcare. Part two takes up these tensions, showing how various ""solutions"" to caring for children of all ages (whether infants or teenagers) create problems. Parts three and four turn outward to show how the relationships between families and work are changing the relationships between families and the communities in which they live and generating social policy dilemmas.

What is the relationship between work and family in a world where employment creates endless tensions for families and families create endless tensions for the workplace? This collection of articles broadens this discussion by addressing issues from the perspectives of often neglected populations: from white middle-class women with young children to people of colour, to poor families, to the families gays and lesbians are struggling to construct, to fathers and to older children. To discuss work and family is also to discuss gender. Ranging from California's Silicon Valley to a remote fishing village, part one shows how new work arrangements have created new expectations for what it means to be a woman or a man, and how slow and uneven the pace of change can be. Nowhere are the tensions of work and family more potent than around childcare. Part two takes up these tensions, showing how various ""solutions"" to caring for children of all ages (whether infants or teenagers) create problems. Parts three and four turn outward to show how the relationships between families and work are changing the relationships between families and the communities in which they live and generating social policy dilemmas.