Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity

Roland Robertson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. His books include International Systems and the Modernization of Societies (with J P Nettl, 1968) The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (1970) Meaning and Change: Explorations in the Cultural Sociology of Modern Societies (1978), Religion and Global Order (co-edited with William R Garrett, 1991) and Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity (co-edited with Bryan S Turner Bryan S. Turner is Professor of Sociology in the Asian Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore. Previously he was Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge from 1998-2005. His research interests include globalization and religion, concentrating on such issues as religious conflict and the modern state, religious authority and electronic information, religious, consumerism and youth cultures, human rights and religion, the human body, medical change, and religious cosmologies. He is Joint Chief Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies and serves on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals.