Talcott Parsons

Roland Robertson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. His books include International Systems and the Modernization of Societies (with J P Nettl, 1968) The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (1970) Meaning and Change: Explorations in the Cultural Sociology of Modern Societies (1978), Religion and Global Order (co-edited with William R Garrett, 1991) and Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity (co-edited with Bryan S Turner Bryan S. Turner is Professor of Sociology in the Asian Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore. Previously he was Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge from 1998-2005. His research interests include globalization and religion, concentrating on such issues as religious conflict and the modern state, religious authority and electronic information, religious, consumerism and youth cultures, human rights and religion, the human body, medical change, and religious cosmologies. He is Joint Chief Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies and serves on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals.

• An Introduction to Talcott Parsons - Roland Robertson and Bryan S TurnerTheory, Politics and HumanityThe American Value System - Victor LidzA Commentary on Talcott Parsons′s Perspective and UnderstandingA Tentative Outline of American Values - Talcott ParsonsPractice Against Theory in American Sociology - Harold J Bershadyan Exercise in the Sociology of KnowledgeThe Structure of Social Action - Mark GouldAt Least Sixty Years Ahead of Its TimeInfluence and Solidarity - Victor LidzDefining a Conceptual Core for SociologyThe Central Significance of ′Religion′ in Social Theory - Roland RobertsonParsons as an Epical TheoristParsons and Modernity - Frank J LechnerAn InterpretationSimmel and Parsons Reconsidered - Donald N LevineFrom Sick Role to Health Role - Arthur W FrankDeconstructing ParsonsThe Political Orientation of Talcott Parsons - Jens Kaalhauge Nielsenthe Second World War and its AftermathNeo-functionalism and the ′New Theoretical Movement′ - Bryan S TurnerThe Post-Parsonian Rapprochement between Germany and AmericaHow to Read Parsons - Bryan S Turner and Roland Robertson

`It is a compendium of thirteen original papers, including some unpublished work by Parson′s himself, which goes well beyond providinga coda to his work. The authors reopen a new postfunctionalist phase in which Parsons is put into perspective as new emendations are constructed on the basis provided by his work...For those interested in sociocultural dimensions of the group process and the integration of group members outside society, the book provides considerable food for thought′ - Group Analysis