Sorokin and Civilization: A Centennial Assessment / Edition 1

by Joseph B. Ford

Overview

Sorokin and Civilization is a festschrift to Pitirim Sorokin, one of the most famed figures of twentieth-century sociology and first president of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC). He was a giant of the twentieth-century stage in the larger world as well. He debated with Trotsky, exchanged ideas with Pavlov, and received a personal invitation to meet with President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia. His principled dissent from sociological orthodoxy frequently anticipated that of Charles Wright Mills, Alfred McClung Lee, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He was, to paraphrase Joseph Ford, a scholar among statesmen and a statesman among scholars.

The volume is divided into four parts: "A Life Remembered"; "Sorokin as Gadfly"; "Sorokin's Methodology"; and, "Applying Sorokin's Theories." Contributors and chapters to this volume include: "Sorokin's Life and Work" by Barry V. Johnston; "The Sorokin-Merton Correspondence on Puritanism, Pietism, and Science" by Robert K. Merton; "Sorokin and American Sociology: The Dynamics of a Moral Career in Science" by Lawrence T. Nichols; "Sorokin as Dialectician" by Robert C. Hanson; "Applying Sorokin's Typology" by Michel P. Richard; and "Transitions, Revolutions, and Wars" by William Eckhardt. Sorokin and Civilization will appeal to all those with an interest in cultural and historical processes and the life and theories of Sorokin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560002475
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	01/30/1995
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joseph Brandon Ford, who worked closely with Sorokin at Harvard, chaired the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at California State University in Northridge.

Michel Paul Richard, a retired member of the sociology faculty at the State University of New York in Geneseo, is the editor of Thoughts for All Seasons: The Magazine of Epigrams. Palmer C. Talbutt, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is the author of Reanimation in Philosophy. Roger Williams Wescott is past president of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations.

Table of Contents

Preface
Roger Williams Wescott
Part I: A Life Remembered
1. Sorokin's Life and Work
Barry V. Johnston
2. Sorokin Remembered
Edward A. Tiryakian
3. The Sorokin-Merton Correspondence on "Puritanism, Pietism, and Science," 1933–34
Robert K. Merton
Part II: Sorokin as Gadfly
4. Snakes and Ladders: Parsons and Sorokin at Harvard
William Buxton
5. Sorokin and American Sociology: The Dynamics of a Moral Career in Science
Lawrence T. Nichols
6. Sorokin's Challenge to Modernity
Palmer C. Talbutt
Part III: Sorokin's Methodology
7. Sorokin's Methodology: Integralism as the Key
Joseph B. Ford
8. Sorokin as Dialectician
Robert C. Hanson
9. Sorokin's Concept of Immanent Change
Robert G. Perrin
10. Civilizational Worldview as an Aggregate of Intuitions
David Richardson
Part IV: Applying Sorokin's Theories
11. Sorokin versus Toynbee on Civilization
David Wilkinson
12. Applying Sorokin's Typology
Michel P. Richard
13. An Empirical Assessment of Sorokin's Theory of Change
George A. Hillery, Jr.
Susan V. Mead
Robert G. Turner, Jr.
14. A Study of Generational Fluctuations in Philosophical Beliefs
Dean Keith Simonton
15. Sorokin's Vision of Altruistic Love as a Bridge to Human Consensus
Paul V. Crosbie
Samuel P. Oliner
16. Transitions, Revolutions, and Wars
William Eckhardt
Contributors
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index