What is society? What roles do social action, social behavior, social relationships, and social groups play in constructing social reality? In this intriguing volume, Ramkrishna Mukherjee examines these and other significant questions. In the opening chapters, he examines two salient issues--the apparent disintegration of the joint family system in India and the emergence of Bangladesh in the subcontinent--issues that illustrate the abstractions of systemic sociology. Other chapters address the ontology of sociology in light of the nature of social reality and epistemological questions that relate to the distinctions and interrelations among the social science disciplines. "The book is not an easy read. That should not, however, deter serious students of both sociology and other social science disciplines from giving this book close attention." --The Hindu