The author of numerous previous books of broad appeal and scholarly acclaim on subjects ranging from sociological theory to religious ethics in government and economic systems, and the coauthor of a vastly influential treatise onThe Social Construction of Reality, Berger unfolds inRedeeming Laughtera new perspective on a classic domain. Berger's comic terrain is at once noble and amusing, the terrain of Erasmus and Swift. Like his predecessors', Berger's writing in these pages is bolstered with exemplary learning and wry observation.