According to Joseph Schumpeter, ‘economic sociology’ is an area of interest to both economists and sociologists. Economic sociology is generally considered to have been invented towards the end of the nineteeth century when it quickly became both popular and successful. Its goal — then as now — is to analyse economic institutions from a sociological perspective. During 1930-1980 interest waned; but during the last 10 to 15 years there has been something of a renaissance in this field, especially associated with what is called New Economic Sociology. This volume contains many of the classic articles in economic sociology, both from the early period (especially Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter) and from the current generation (such as Mark Granovetter and Viviana Zelizer).