About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 199. Chapters: Talcott Parsons, Calvin Coolidge, Ezekiel Emanuel, Jonathon Keats, Joseph Stiglitz, Francis Amasa Walker, Jim Steinman, Warren Fales Draper, David Foster Wallace, Albert II, Prince of Monaco, Thomas M. Davis, William S. Clark, Patrick Fitzgerald, Dan Brown, Drew Pinsky, William H. Lewis, George Papandreou, Uhuru Kenyatta, Edmund Phelps, Harlan F. Stone, David S. Reynolds, David Suzuki, Robert Brustein, Chris Coons, B. Alan Wallace, Burgess Meredith, Robert Harold Davidson, Jonatha Brooke, Henry Ward Beecher, Don Cohan, Thomas Eagleton, Chris Lehane, Lewis Williams Douglas, Nauman Scott, Robert M. Morgenthau, Gerald Warner Brace, Sarah J. Mahler, John J. McCloy, Bruce Fairchild Barton, Horace Maynard, George N. Gillett, Jr., Aatish Taseer, Chris Bohjalian, Antonis Samaras, Talcott Williams Seelye, Charles R. Drew, Asa Lovejoy, Edward Ralph May, Carl Woese, Richard Wilbur, Stansfield Turner, Melvil Dewey, Harvey Rosenfield, Teller (entertainer), James Merrill, Stavros Lambrinidis, Lloyd Schermer, Ken Howard, Kimmie Weeks, Eric Kriss, Henry Martin Tupper, David O. Russell, Jennifer Kimball, Marcy Wheeler, John Whitney Hall, J. G. Sandom, H. Stuart Hughes. Excerpt: Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 - May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. Parsons developed a general theory for the study of society called action theory, based on the methodological principle of voluntarism and the epistemological principle of analytical realism. The theory attempted to establish a balance between two major methodological traditions: the utilitarian-positivist and hermeneutic-idealistic traditions. For Parsons, voluntarism established a third alternative between these two. More than a theory of society, Parsons presented a theory of social evolution and a concrete interpretation of the "drives" and directions of world history. Parsons analyzed the work of Emile Durkheim and Vilfredo Pareto and evaluated their contributions through the paradigm of voluntaristic action. Parsons was also largely responsible for introducing and interpreting Max Weber's work to American audiences. Although he was generally considered a major structuralist functionalist scholar, in an article late in life, Parsons explicitly wrote that the term "functional" or "structural functionalist" were inappropriate ways to describe the character of his theory. For Parsons, "structural functionalism" was a particular stage in the methodological development of the social science, and "functionalism" was a universal method; neither term was a name for any specific school. In the same way, the concept "grand theory" is a derogatory term, which Parsons himself never used. Parsons was born 13 December 1902 in Colorado Springs. Parsons was the son of Edward Smith Parsons (1863-1943) and Mary Augusta Ingersoll (1863-1949). His father had attended Yale Divinity School and was ordained as a Congregationalist minister, serving first as a minister for a pioneer community in Greeley, Colorado. At the time of Parsons' birth Edward S. Parsons was a professor in English at Colorado College and vice-president of the college. D
