Pragmatist thought is central to sociology. However, sociologists typically encounter pragmatism from a distance, through the works of canonical social scientists including George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer, Irving Goffman, and W. E. B. DuBois, rather than the philosophers who founded the school of thought, such as Charles S. Peirce, John Dewey, and William James.

In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historical and theoretical connection to classical pragmatism. The book is divided into three sections that examine questions of methodology, social interaction, and politics across the broad themes of inquiry, agency, and democracy. Essays engage widely and deeply with topics that motivate both pragmatist philosophy and sociology, including rationality, speech, truth, expertise, and methodological pluralism.

Contributors include Natalie Aviles, Karida Brown, Daniel Cefai, Mazen Elfakhani, Luis Flores, Daniel Huebner, Cayce C. Hughes, Paul Lichterman, John Levi Martin, Ann Mische, Vontrese D. Pamphile, Jeffrey N. Parker, Susan Sibley, Daniel Silver, Mario Small, Iddo Tavory, Stefan Timmermans, Luna White, and Joshua Whitford.