American Society

Never before published American Society is the product of Talcott Parsonss last major theory-building project. During the 1970s Parsons worked persistently to fulfill his earlier promise to produce a general book on American society. The surviving manuscript completed just a few weeks before his death is just such a book. Beyond its rich reading of American society it offers a systematic presentation and major revisions of his previous landmark theoretical positions: the attempt to elaborate a non-nostalgic theory of modernity to link macro and micro perspectives to defend the possibility of objective sociological knowledge to analyze national specificities within the context of worldwide trends to develop an adequate conception of societal integration grounded in fully pluralistic premises. Even after the passage of many years the book imparts a remarkably provocative interpretation of US society and a creative approach to social theory.