Social scientists share the work of telling about society with playwrights, novelists, photographers, statisticians, cartographers, and ordinary people, all of whom have some ideas on the subject to express from time to time. Telling About Society explores what’s common to all these endeavors and how they vary depending on the nature of the social organization the telling takes place in. It suggests the surprising conclusion that every way of telling these stories is perfect—for someone in some situation, although never for all people everywhere.

One of French writer Georges Perec's most famous pieces, "I Remember", consists of 480 numbered paragraphs - each just a few short lines recalling a memory from his childhood. The work has neither a beginning nor an end, nor does it contain any analysis. But it nonetheless reveals profound truths about French society during the 1940s and '50s. Taking Perec's book as its cue, "Telling About Society" explores the unconventional ways we communicate what we know about society to others. The third in distinguished teacher Howard S. Becker's best-selling series of writing guides for social scientists, the book explores the many ways knowledge about society can be shared and interpreted through different forms of telling - fiction, films, photographs, maps, even mathematical models - many of which remain outside the boundaries of conventional social science. Eight case studies, including the photographs of Walker Evans, the plays of George Bernard Shaw, the novels of Jane Austen and Italo Calvino, and the sociology of Erving Goffman, provide convincing support for Becker's argument: that every way of telling about society is perfect - for some purpose. The trick is, as Becker notes, to discover what purpose is served by doing it this way rather than that. With Becker's trademark humor and eminently practical advice, "Telling About Society" is an ideal guide for social scientists in all fields and for anyone interested in communicating knowledge in unconventional ways.