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.