This collection of the writings of Louis Schneider, an exceptionally gifted sociologist of religion the history of ideas, provides a sensitive but rigorous view of the place of ideas in social life. Di-vided according to the principal areas in which Schneider con-ducted research-history of social thought, principles of social the-ory, sociology of religion-are es-says on evolution, styles of re-search, and moral choice in human relations. His knowledge of systems of thought-dialec-tical, functional, and phenomenological-was peerless. The unifying theme in his work is the place of cultural formations in so-cial structures; as a result, his writings are alive with persons no less than systems.