No label defined (Q4397004)

This book is a survey of social networks and their mathematical analysis. The first two chapters are a historical introduction and a discussion of types of networks and what data about them are used. The remainder of the book is devoted to the mathematical analysis, beginning with the basics of graph theory and going on to concepts which are specially relevant to social networks: centrality and roles within social groups, balance theory, analysis of significant subgroups of a social group such as cliques, structural equivalence, block models, semigroups of binary relations, dyads, triads, and statistical versions of these models. The book is quite readable, starts with the basics, and gives a good survey of many techniques. I recommend it to anyone interested in the area.