George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. A largely self-taught sociologist, Ritzer is most widely known in the scholarly community for his distinctive contributions to the study of consumption, globalization, metatheory, and classical, modern and postmodern social theory. Ritzer is an academic celebrity, however, as a result of The McDonaldization of Society (5th edition 2008; first published in 1993), which is among the most popular monographs ever penned by a sociologist. A pessimist in the Weberian tradition, Ritzer has expanded and developed his highly critical analysis of contemporary social life in such monographs as Enchanting a Disenchanted World, as well as the aptly titled The Globalization of Nothing. Moving in what appears to be the completely opposite direction, he is currently working on The Outsourcing of Everything (co-authored with Craig Lair and to be published in 2009).

He has published a dozen monographs and almost as many textbooks, many of the latter, especially, in numerous multiple editions. He is founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture and has edited almost a dozen professional volumes, as well as three encyclopedias (including the massive, eleven-volume Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology). He has also authored roughly one hundred scholarly articles in refereed journals.

This text aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the history of modern sociological thought, as well as an analysis of contemporary schools and new theoretical orientations. Organized chronologically, it begins with a synopsis of the formative years and concludes with the emergence of post-modern social theory. It integrates theories with biographical and autobiographical sketches of the lives of theorists to place readings in their personal and historical context.