Presents an approach to how culture works in societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, this work shows how these unseen cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions.

Introduction: The Meanings of (Social) Life: On the Origins of a Cultural Sociology ; 1. The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics (with Phillip Smith) ; 2. On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The "Holocaust" from War Crime to Trauma Drama ; 3. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity ; 4. A Cultural Sociology of Evil ; 5. The Discourse of American Civil Society (with Phillip Smith) ; 6. Watergate as Democratic Ritual ; 7. The Sacred and Profane Information Machine ; 8. Modern, Anti, Post, and Neo: How Intellectuals Explain "Our Time" ; Notes ; References ; Index

"Alexander effectively positions meanings at the center of a cultural form of public sociology that is concerned with symbolic codes, their social production, and their distribution through carrier groups and social movements The Meanings of Social Life provides the urtext for a new cultural framing of sociology."--John R. Hall, Contemporary Sociology

"Alexander effectively positions meanings at the center of a cultural form of public sociology that is concerned with symbolic codes, their social production, and their distribution through carrier groups and social movements The Meanings of Social Life provides the urtext for a new cultural framing of sociology."--John R. Hall, Contemporary Sociology "Alexander has succeeded to a remarkable degree in establishing his distinctive cultural theory and empirical research program as a collective enterprise. Indeed... one can fairly speak of the existence of... an Alexander School--of cultural sociology."--Mustafa Emirbayer, Thesis Eleven "The Meanings of Social Life is an intellectual tour de force that cements Jeffrey Alexander's reputation as a paradigmatic thinker in cultural as well as theoretical sociology."--Mabel Berezin, Newsletter of the Sociology of Culture Section of the American Sociological Asssociation "This book is important for the clarity and liveliness with which it communicates the core ideas and real innovations cultural sociology offers the discipline, and I hope that it's widely read."--Lyn Spillman, Newsletter of the Sociology of Culture Section of the American Sociological Asssociation "Whether Alexander is considering high theory, the Holocaust, or computerization, the reader is treated to a mind at work that breathes originality and brilliance. A commanding...compelling performance! "--Steven Seidman, author of Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life "The theoretical outline at the beginning is only the introduction to a series of more concrete and often brilliant studies reaching from the Holocaust to Watergate, from cultural trauma and collective identity to a cultural sociology of the evil....All these studies are convincing examples of the connection of structuralism and hermeneutics."--American Journal of Sociology "Jeffrey Alexander views culture as causal, not merely a reflection of social structure, but as embodied and embedded in institutions and personalities, rather than as coming down from on high. The final chapter about the ways in which we social scientists have thought about the world in which we live is alone worth the price of the book. A powerful argument."--Robert Bellah, coauthor of Habits of the Heart "Boldly, often brashly, challenging almost every cultural analyst in sight, Jeffrey Alexander here states and illustrates his strong program for analysis of culture as a coherent, autonomous social realm. The Holocaust, Watergate, computers, and contemporary American society at large all provide starting points for Alexander's distinctive reflections on social experience."--Viviana A. Zelizer, author of The Social Meaning of Money "This is a powerful claim on behalf of reuniting what has been separated since the beginning of the sociological venture: shapes of acts and their meanings, descriptions of human deeds and their comprehension, the this-worldly and the transcendental, religion and reason, values and facts, the poetry of culture and the prose of the mundane. This claim has been made with the hope of liberating the knowledge of things human from its service to a power that too often struggles to liberate itself form the ethical bonds of humanity. A commanding claim that makes for fascinating reading."--Zygmunt Bauman, author of Modernity and the Holocaust