Analytical sociology is a strategy for understanding the social world. It is concerned with explaining important social facts such as network structures, patterns of residential segregation, typical beliefs, cultural tastes, and common ways of acting. It explains such facts by detailing in clear and precise ways the mechanisms through which the social facts were brought about. Making sense of the relationship between micro and macro thus is one of the central concerns of analytical sociology. The Handbook brings together some of the most prominent sociologists in the world. Some of the chapters focus on action and interaction as the cogs and wheels of social processes, while others consider the dynamic social processes that these actions and interactions.

Foundations 1. What is analytical sociology all about? An introductory essay by Peter Hedstrom, Peter Hedstrom and Peter Bearman 2. Analytical sociology and theories of the middle range, Peter Hedstrom and Lars Udehn Social Cogs and Wheels 3. Emotions, Jon Elster 4. Beliefs, Jens Rydgren 5. Preferences, Jeremy Freese 6. Opportunities, Trond Petersen 7. Heuristics, Dan Goldstein 8. Signaling, Diego Gambetta 9. Norms, Jon Elster 10. Trust, Karen Cook and Alexandra Gerbasi Social Dynamics 11. Social dynamics from the bottom up: Agent-based models of social interaction, Michael Macy and Andreas Flache 12. Segregation dynamics, Elizabeth Bruch and Robert Mare 13. Self fulfilling processes, Michael Biggs 14. Social influence: The puzzling nature of success in cultural markets, Matthew Salganik and Duncan Watts 15. The Contagiousness of Divorce, Yvonne Aberg 16. Matching, Katherine Stovel and Christine Fountain 17. Collective action, Delia Baldassarri 18. Conditional choice, Meredith Rolfe 19. Network dynamics, James Moody 20. Threshold models of social influence, Duncan Watts and Peter Dodds 21. Time and scheduling, Christopher Winship 22. Homophily and the focused organization of ties, Scott Feld and Bernard Grofman 23. Status, Joel Podolny and Freda Lynn 24. Dominance hierarchies, Ivan Chase and W. Brent Lindquist 25. Conflict, Stathis Kalyvas Perspectives from other fields and approaches 26. Game theory, Richard Breen 27. Experiments, Iris Bohnet 28. Surveys, Hannah Brueckner 29. Analytical ethnography, Diane Vaughan 30. Historical sociology, Karen Barkey