Abstract
This chapter describes the sequence of actions that led to the choice of writing this book. A choice based on the need to express idea about the role and functions of human and social sciences, and not just to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sorokin’s death. Social sciences, in chasing the operationalization of social and human beings, have lost sight not only of their peculiar objects of study, but also of their purpose for humanity. To describe this, decided to journey through Sorokin’s works (man and scholar free in thought and action), sketching the various stages in his path of intellectual growth. Almost all of Sorokin’s works have represented a more or less lengthy stage of this journey. For the sake of simplicity, divided the evolution of his thought into two great moments: the Russian experiences that dramatically marked him since his childhood, and the American ones that first made him a world-renowned sociologist and then condemned him to oblivion.
This journey not only entailed reading Sorokin’s fundamental concepts, but it represented also an opportunity to try and adapt them to contemporary society, as well as to reaffirm the role of sociology and other social sciences as disciplines at the service of humanity.
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Notes
- 1.
We wish to point out that this text has then been published in a version and abridged revised in one volume by the author with the title Social & Cultural Dynamics. A Study of Change in Major Systems of Art, Truth, Ethics, Law and Social Relationships (Sorokin 1957).
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Mangone, E. (2018). Prologue: The Reasons for a Choice. In: Social and Cultural Dynamics . SpringerBriefs in Psychology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68309-6_1
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