IN RECENT years, sociologists have returned to study the field's first subject, economic behavior. Beginning in the 1840s, Karl Marx tried to understand the economic underpinnings of class relations and political activity. Forty years later, Émile Durkheim explored how work was divided up in...

Although there are encyclopedias covering economics, classic economic theory and history, the SAGE Encyclopedia of Economics and Society emphasises the contemporary world, contemporary issues, and society