"Eviatar Zerubavel is the reigning master of what might be called nuance in human life. His rich mind and finely tuned sensibility allows him to discern the sound of what most of us cannot hear, the look of what we cannot see, the meaning of what we somehow manage to forget or block out from our line of vision. This is social science of a rare and special order." -Kai Erikson, Yale University "Hidden in Plain Sight will make you more aware of all the interesting details in the world that most people do not notice." -Temple Grandin, author of The Autistic Brain "Attention, as the author demonstrates with a panoply of vivid examples, is at the center of social life. This concise and elegant essay richly deserves ours." -Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University "In this concise and elegant book, Eviatar Zerubavel shows through myriad examples how what draws our attention in the visual field is not merely a matter of perception, but is fundamentally shaped by the social environment in which we live. As Zerubavel recognizes, although we assume that seeing is believing, what we see is often based on what we believe that we will see.

" -Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University "Zerubavel's aim is to offer a perspective he claims is missing in the research on attention-social attention. He synthesizes a great deal of work on attention and connects the work to numerous examples from everyday life. Overall, this is a well-written and thought provoking book likely to entertain and inspire curious lay readers." -CHOICE.