BSA Conference 1976 – Books back in print

By | 25th July 2018

The 1976 BSA conference in Manchester was the year medical sociology was welcomed into the mainstream of UK sociology. Robert Dingwall was a member of the organizing committee, led by the much-missed Meg Stacey and including Margaret Reid and Christian Heath.

At that time, selected papers were published in edited books – the strength of the material that year resulted in two volumes: Health Care and Health Knowledge and Health and the Division of Labour. The original publisher, Croom Helm, has long been swallowed up in the restructuring of the academic publishing industry but the rights have now ended up with Routledge, who have brought both volumes back into print in hardback and ebook formats. The books provide a fascinating glimpse into the history of medical sociology with contributions ranging from Eliot Freidson, who was revered in the UK as the advocate of a sociology of, rather than in, medicine to early work by people like Paul Atkinson, Sally Macintyre, David Hughes and Hilary Graham. The edition is a scan of the original, which includes the embarrassing mis-spelling of Eliot Freidson’s name on the contents page – the editors proof read the main text and there are no mistakes there!

Probably one for your library rather than individual purchase but a chance to think about how the field has developed within living memory.

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