Although my response to the thoughtful remarks of Fullerton and Graham will of necessity take on the tones of special pleading, there is a general case to be made on behalf of the basic introductory textbook. Yes, they are clonelike, overburdened with production values and ancillary materials, often written by in-house staff, frequently marketed via unethical givebacks to adopting departments, and possibly nearing the point at which they are too heavy to carry around. As both Fullerton and Graham acknowledge, these trends can be traced in part both to the exigencies of modem textbook publishing and to the demands of mass-produced higher education. It is also true that sociology enrollments have declined over the past decade, further exacerbating competition among publishing houses for a share of the shrinking market. The blockbuster textbook package has apparently replaced Talcott Parsons as the target for disgruntled broadsides. What, then, can be said in defense of the product? First of all, there is the argument that these books, by their very sameness of format, announce to the student-perhaps misleadingly-that there is something called sociology which is a distinct field of study, has definable parameters, and has some generally agreed-upon content. Second, the four-color graphics, myriad illustrations, boxes, and other pedagogical devices dismissed so offhandedly by critics do attract the reader's attention. These features indeed may be catering to the bad learning habits of today's undergraduates, but it is probably too late to turn them into avid readers of turgid prose. Most instructors are fully capable of using these graphic devices as a bridge to the more demanding material in the text proper. Although Graham speaks disparagingly of bracketed citations embedded in virtually every paragraph, I would support a more benign view. The citations serve several rather important functions: to direct students to sources for further study; to assure instructors and students that the most recent research has been surveyed; and to ensure that each statement of presumed fact in the book has some empirical support. It is also a p easing way of recognizing the contributions of colleagues. Actually, it is the citations that keep authors honest; if one is to represent accurately the current state of sociology, it is incumbent to stay abreast of developments in a l the subfields. For me and my coauthors this task involves reading every issue of about one dozen professional journals, attending most major sociology meetings, and keeping track of important monographs and books. We have tried to the best of our ability not to repeat any assertion for which we cannot cite a eputable source-one that we personally read and evaluated. Far from being a drawback, I tend to regard our list of over 1600 references, almost all from the past five years, as a kind of triumph-perhaps excessive, even obsessive, but at least we are not passing along unexamined shibboleths. Critics of the standard textbooks often fall