Pitirim A. Sorokin – författare

Pitirim Sorokin rose from a peasant childhood in Russia to become a major figure in the history of sociology. However, he was considered both a pioneer and an outcast. This text includes essays by this controversial thinker which range from his early Russian years to his final work in the 1960s. His early American works are considered to have opened new vistas in rural sociology, social stratification, and theory, and won him the chairmanship of sociology at Harvard University. A constant innovator, Pitirim next explored the vast expanse of human affairs, and outlined the surfacing crisis of modernity. At the Harvard Research Center for Creative Altruism he developed a blueprint for social reconstruction. In the early 1960s, his work was again recognized, and he became president of the American Sociological Association.

This is an age of great calamities. War and revolution, famine and pestilence, are again rampant on this planet, and they still exact their deadly toll from suffering humanity. Calamities influence every moment of our existence: our mentality and behavior, our social life and cultural processes. Like a demon, they cast their shadow upon every thought we think and every action we perform. In this classic volume, Sorokin attempts to account for the effects these calamities exert on the mental processes, behavior, social organization, and cultural life of the population involved. In what way do famine and pestilence, war and revolution tend to modify our mind and conduct, our social organization and cultural life? To what extent do they succeed in this, and when and why do they prove less effective? What are the causes of these calamities, and what are the ways out? In dealing with these problems Sorokin tries to give a detailed description of the typical effects of famine and pestilence, war and revolution, such as have repeatedly occurred in all major catastrophes of this kind. To use academic language, he attempts to formulate the principal uniformities regularly manifested during such calamities. This book is a forgotten masterpiece of explanation and prediction. It opened new fields of study and broadened the scope of existing specialties.

This is an age of great calamities. War and revolution, famine and pestilence, are again rampant on this planet, and they still exact their deadly toll from suffering humanity. Calamities influence every moment of our existence: our mentality and behavior, our social life and cultural processes. Like a demon, they cast their shadow upon every thought we think and every action we perform. In this classic volume, Sorokin attempts to account for the effects these calamities exert on the mental processes, behavior, social organization, and cultural life of the population involved. In what way do famine and pestilence, war and revolution tend to modify our mind and conduct, our social organization and cultural life? To what extent do they succeed in this, and when and why do they prove less effective? What are the causes of these calamities, and what are the ways out? In dealing with these problems Sorokin tries to give a detailed description of the typical effects of famine and pestilence, war and revolution, such as have repeatedly occurred in all major catastrophes of this kind. To use academic language, he attempts to formulate the principal uniformities regularly manifested during such calamities. This book is a forgotten masterpiece of explanation and prediction. It opened new fields of study and broadened the scope of existing specialties.

This is an analysis of the nature, causes and consequences of the crisis of modern society. Professor Sorokin asserts that the whole of modern culture is undergoing a period of transition brought on by the struggle between the forces of the largely outworn materialistic order and the emerging, creative forces of a new idealistic order. On the outcome of this struggle, the author contends, rests the progress and survival of mankind.