Book excerpt: Life as Theater is about understanding people and how the dramaturgical way of thinking helps or hinders such understanding. A volume that has deservedly attained the status of a landmark work, this was the first book to explore systematically the material and subject matter of social psychology from the dramaturgical viewpoint. It has been widely used and quoted, and has sparked ferment and debate in fields as diverse as sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, speech communication, and formal theater studies.Life as Theater is organized around five substantive issues in social psychology: Social Relationships as Drama; The Dramaturgical Self; Motivation and Drama; Organizational Dramas; and Political Dramas. This classic text was revised and updated for a second edition in 1990, and includes approximately 66 percent new materials, all featuring individual introductions that provide the dramaturgical perspective and reflect the most learned thinking and work being done within this point of view. This book's sophistication will appeal to the scholar, and its clarity and conciseness to the student. Like its predecessor, it is designed to serve as a primary text or supplementary reader in classes. This new paperback edition includes an introduction by Robert A. Stebbins that explains why, even fifteen years after its publication,Life as Theater remains the best single sourcebook on the dramaturgic perspective as applied in the social sciences.