"Why Have so Many People Extended Berger's "Invitation

Given Peter Berger's frequent use of religious examples in Invitation to Sociology, Kevin Christiano's religious imagery in Twentyfive Years of RSVPs is subtle and apt. However, an unexplained conundrum emerges from his paper. Christiano describes how Invitation was not critically acclaimed, how it is deficient in substance, and how his students fail to give it high marks. But he also reports that Invitation sold about 670,000 copies in the first 25 years of its life, as well as being widely translated and anthologized. Given the robust used-book market, the book must have been assigned to at least one and a half million students. If the book is as weak as Kevin Christiano and other reviewers suggest, why has the invitation been extended to so many students? One answer, I believe, lies in the different social locations and perspectives of various participants. Neither critics nor students order and assign most books. Teaching assistants, instructors, and professors do. Evidently they valued the book as an intellectual statement and/or a teaching tool. I'll suggest why I think this might be, then I'll consider the concerns Christiano, his and my students, and reviewers have raised about the book, and add at least one more of my own. In conclusion, I'll pose more general questions about how we decide what to teach and what books to assign

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