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This paper examines the most cited books in Canadian sociology published between 1975 and 1987 as measured by the Social Science Citation Index. It contrasts books which received twenty or more citations over a five-year period from all sources (thirty-one books in all) with how many citations these books had received in the two core Canadian anglophone sociology journals. The latter list at its upper levels was mainly oriented to feminist sociology and political economy (stratification and regionalism). The overall list was broader in its coverage of topics and the paper advances possible explanations for the difference between the two lists. Finally, the paper examines the one socio-demographic factor of sex to see whether women published highly visible books below, at or above their numbers in the sociological population. In fact women were more likely to publish (highly cited) books compared to articles in core journals. The reason is related to book publishing's receptivity to qualitative methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian sociology has contributed to and been transformed by the "new" Canadian political economy tradition emerging in the early 1970s. The macrosociological tradition within Canadian sociology readily melded into this new scholarship. This paper reflects upon these mutual influences and ponders the prognosis for sociology's viability in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the author's comments on the paper Canada's Impossible Science: Historical and Institutional Origins of the Coming Crisis in Anglo-Canadian Sociology. Do grand visions and preoccupations with how we ought to be doing our work have a place in the contemporary world of Anglo-Canadian sociology or should we avert our gaze from the flood of imperatives that we are implored to take seriously and just get on with it? Get on with the teaching? Get on with the scramble for resources and recognition? Get on with the construction of our world, the consensual observations that once on the page are us, the texts of sociology? Recognition and reputation do flow from publication and engaged teaching. That much we know or should know. So why not just do it and, thereby, perhaps, banish or, at least, reduce the innervating gloom of collective self-doubt that seems to be so much with us these days? So why not stop wringing our hands about our journals and simply fill their pages with worthy observations? So why not stop complaining about the quality of our meetings and take up the challenge of finding there those who can understand our specialized ways of talking and writing? McLaughlin provides us with plenty of reasons why not,