Table of Contents

Introduction
The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge
The Development of the Sociology of Health
Postmodernity, Epidemiology and Neo-Liberalism
Materialist Approaches to the Sociology of Health
Parsons, American Sociology of Medicine and the Sick Role
Foucault and the Sociology of Medical Knowledge
Health, Gender and Feminism
Race, Ethnicity and Health
Conclusion

About the Author

Kevin White is Reader in Sociology at the Australian National University, Canberra. He has held appointments at Flinders University, Wollongong University and Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand. He has published widely in the sociology of health and in the social history of medicine. At ANU he lectures the large introductory class, Introduction to Social Psychology, The Sociology of Health and Illness, Classical Social theory and Qualitative Methods.

Reviews

`The overall arguments being made are thoroughly sociological, and the chapters provide great overviews and insights that even those experienced in the field will find useful. The chapters in the text are very stimulating, and White calls on a variety of perspectives to flesh out the arguments he makes. I would certainly recommend the text for introductory courses. The invigorating style should be attractive to students′ - eSocHealth `Health is a preoccupation of the media and of the wider culture of advanced societies. Kevin White guides us through the many reasons for the centrality of health. The thesis of his book is that health and illness are products not just of our biology but of the society into which we are born. He expertly draws on the works of Parsons, Marx, Foucault and feminist writers to provide an authoritative analysis of the social nature of health′ - Ray Fitzpatrick, University of Oxford