The Talcott Parsons Reader
Blackwell Readers
1. Edition April 2000
368 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Talcott Parsons has been one of the most influential American
sociologists of the postwar period. Bryan Turner's selections from
Parsons' work provide a comprehensive overview of his principal
contributions and are grouped under the following subdivisions:
religion and modern society; life, sex, and death; sociological
theory; and American society and the world order.
These selections offer an exposition of the core features of
Parsons' sociology and demonstrate his continuing relevance to
critical issues today, including globalization, the place of
American civilization in the world order, and the importance of
sociological theory as an analysis of modern culture.
Introduction: The Contributions of Talcott Parsons to the Study
of Modernity.
Part I: Religion and Modern Society:.
1. Christianity and Modern Industrial Society.
2. Belief, Unbelief and Disbelief.
3. Religous Symbolization and Death.
4. The Symbolic Environment of Modern Economies.
Part II: Life, Sex and Death: .
5. Illness and the Role of the Physician.
6. Towards a Healthy Maturity.
7. The Gift of Life and Its Reciprocation.
Part III: Sociological Theory:.
8. The Theoretical Development of the Sociology of Religion.
9. Evolutionary Universals in Society.
10. Pattern Variables Revisited.
Part IV: American Society and the World Order: .
11. Social Strains in America.
12. The Distribution of Power in American Society.
13. Order and Community in the International Social System.
14. Polarization of the World and International Order.
15. Youth in the Context of American Society.
16. Death in American Society.
17. Religion in Post-Industrial America.
Bibliography of Talcott Parsons.
Selected Bibliograpy (in English) on the Sociology of Talcott
Parsons.
Chronologyy of the Life of Talcott Parsons.
Index.
for contemporary readers why Talcott Parsons is regarded as the
dominant sociological theorist of the mid-twentieth century, and
one of the master narrators of modernity. Ranging from economics
and global power to considerations of youth, sickness, and death,
these empirically-oriented selections reveal the vast scope of
Parson's thought." - Jeffrey Alexander, University
of California at Los Angeles
"Parsons once described himself as an 'incurable
theorist'. This excellent collection of essays reveals a
practical sociologist possessing great insight into the modern
condition. Professor Turner has done a real service in reminding us
of the substantive issues to which Parsons's theoretical
efforts were ultimately directed, issues which are as central to
the discipline now as when Parsons was writing." - John
Holmwood, University of Edinburgh
