About the Author

Timothy L. O'Brien is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he regularly teaches the introduction to sociology course as well as courses on the sociology of law and quantitative research methods. His research focuses on how expertise, credibility, and authority are recognized and given meaning in science, law, and politics, among other places. Garth Massey (PhD, Indiana University--Bloomington) is Professor Emeritus of International Studies at the University of Wyoming, where he was Director of International Studies and Professor of Sociology, and taught courses in political economy and social change, research methods and social theory, social inequality and stratification, and the sociology of work. After retiring from the University of Wyoming in 2008, Massey moved to Portland, and currently teaches at Portland State University. In addition to editing Readings for Sociology, he is the author of Ways of Social Change, a textbook on social change from Sage Publications. His interests in comparative sociology led him to live and do research in Eastern Europe, East Africa, Australia, and the Middle East.