Talcott Parsons: Despair and Modernity

Talcott Parsons is probably the most important and influential US sociologist of the twentieth century. His career spanned the early formation of sociology as an academic discipline and he was active during a key period of its institutionalization in the USA in the 1940s and 1950s when his structural-functional theory of social systems was most influential. His approach fell from favour in the 1970s in a political climate more attuned to issues of conflict and change and few sociologists of subsequent generations self-consciously identified themselves with it, although it remained the critical foil against which alternative positions were defined. This collection brings together, for the first time, the leading essays covering the work of Parsons, introduced and contextualized by a detailed essay written by the editor.

John Holmwood is Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham, UK. He was formerly Professor of Sociology and Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. His main research interests are the relation between social theory and explanation and social stratification and inequality.