Andrew Delano Abbott (born November 1948) is an American sociologist and social theorist working at the University of Chicago.
His research topics range from occupations and professions to the philosophy of methods, the history of academic disciplines, to the sociology of knowledge.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received a Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Versailles - Saint Quentin (2011, France).
Reviews of the book mention several "powerful ideas" that enhance previous work on professionals: The arguments are illustrated by three historical case studies.
First named ‘a fascinating account of struggles by librarians, computer programmers, operations researchers, and others over the “information” jurisdiction’ is reported to be an example of juxtaposition of professional histories being usually considered separately.
[9] The arguments have been critiqued as being subjective by a reviewer who said the model of ‘diagnosis, inference, and treatment’ is considered to be ‘only partially successful'.
Another point of critique mentioned is a way comparison of the volume's ecological view with the population-ecology's perspective is done: ‘First, the demography of professions plays a key role in the case studies… Second, Abbott’s call to focus on jurisdictions rather than occupations should be taken seriously by population ecologists, who ordinarily focus on organizations rather than niches.
Third, the fates of many organizations and the professions that stuff them are intertwined; interdependence between the two ecologies deserves close empirical scrutiny’.
This perspective, which is meant to offer an alternative paradigm to investigate society, is sketched out in a recent collection of essays[12] For many years each issue of the American Journal of Sociology featured an essay reviewing an historically important sociology book, written under the pen name of Barbara Celarent, supposedly writing from the year 2049.
[13] The provided standard of sociological reviewer-ship is considered to be new because of executing the study of the works 'with a rare depth and seriousness'.