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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.

A meaningful interpretation of the dynamics of recent momentous historical changes -- most notably the unexpected and surprising implosion of the Soviet empire in 1989-1990 -- may be obtained by recombining aspects of the sociology of religion analyses of Weber and Durkheim, In particular, their complementary notions of 'charisma' and 'collective effervescence' provide an understanding of how social actors in coercive secular states, confronted by a seeming monopoly of the use of physical force, are able, in certain exceptional circumstances, to mobilise and disarm the state. The assembling of the societal or national community is the background to Weber's discussion of charismatic leadership and the foreground to Durkheim, The 'vrivet revolutions' of 1989 in various countries of Eastern Europe may be seen as manifestations of an historical moment of 'collective effervescence' in which the assembled collectivity itself, more than individual figures, manifested the empowerment of charisma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]