Trust, as Simmel noted, is a hypothesis regarding future behavior that is certain enough to serve as a basis for practical conduct. To trust another person (or collectivity or institution) is intermediate between knowledge and ignorance. Simmel was one of many social scientists (e.g., Tonnies, Durkheim, Parsons) who have contended that trust is one of the most important integrative forces within society. Modernization and its attendant social isolation, in the face of massive global changes, underscore the need to reexamine trust in all its multivariate and multidisciplinary character. This anthology presents twelve studies of trust. Some are conceptual, theoretical analyses, while others use historical data on societies, national surveys or cross-national comparative studies to test hypotheses.
