Imagining social things, competently -- Personal courage and practical sociologies -- Practicing the discipline of social things sociology -- Sociology and the lost worlds of the new world order: 1848-1920 -- Sociology becomes the science of worldly structures: 1920-1960 -- Sociology reaches into the world: 1968-2000s -- The mysterious power of social structures -- The lively subjects of dead structures -- Well-measured lives in a world of differences : global things -- Global methods -- Global things on a fragile planet -- Living against the conclusion