This volume collects 12 papers from the journal Comparative Sociology taken from the period 2002-2007. Selected by Sasaki (sociology, Chuo U., Japan), the papers highlight theoretical, methodological, and substantive aspects of contemporary comparative sociology. Topics addressed include strategies for conducting comparative sociology, methods for assessing and calibrating response scales for comparative attitude surveys across countries and languages, socio-economic well-being in communist and post-communist China and Russia, temporally comparative social structure and personality in Ukraine in transition, comparative cultural value orientations, critical analysis of Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" thesis, cultural-economic impediments to democracy in the Middle East, conditions of political opportunity in stable non-democratic regimes, economic globalization and income inequality in 72 countries of the developing world, the prevalence of and attitudes towards English as an international language, and a test of Marion Levy's theory that modernized societies will show increasing structural uniformity. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)