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It is gratifying to be asked to reflect on the contributions of Roland Robertson and at the same time a rather complex challenge. In this year of America's Quincentennial, it might be appropriate to designate Robertson as a peripatetic sociological explorer, who like Columbus, Byrd, Lindbergh, and others, has enjoyed setting sail in uncharted territory. It might also be opportune to assert that sociology is now ready to accept the possibility that the globalization theme could be a new sociological continent, and that consequently both globality and Roland Robertson are "coming of age." The article first discusses an intellectual context in which to situate Robertson's current emphasis. Second, although it considers a sympathetic fellow traveller, it is also incumbent to raise some questions about that which is the object of treat search. When Robertson came on the scene, sociology had entered a state, its recent hegemonic conceptual framework of structural-functional analysis now rejected or trivialized by a new generation of sociologists as a conservative ideology incapable of dealing with conflict, which was seen as the main vehicle of social change.