Renowned sociologist Talcott Parsons's last major project, a masterly work that lives up to its billing as 'a general book on American society'.

Never before published, "American Society" is the product of Talcott Parsons 's 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 and much more. 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 U.S. society and a creative approach to social theory.

"This book demonstrates how Parsons attempted to develop a framework applicable to concrete situations. ? [American Society] helps remind readers how Parsonian structural functional can be used to illuminate how social crisis can be overcome. Recommended." -CHOICE