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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.

In this article, the author suggests that wherein lies the source of what he ventures to assert as perhaps the most powerful metaphor used by a sociologist, one which has served as an apt summarizing of the topography of modern advanced society. Max Weber in this seminal essay has shown the dialectical relationship between the sacred and the profane to invoke the famous dichotomy features in that other great pre-World War I treatise in the sociology of religion. Weber has traced interconnections and interdependence between that powerful religious force, asceticism, and the rational economic conduct that typifies the development of modem capitalism. Weber's essay, examines stages of the transformation of Western civilization, with a critical quantum leap introduced by the Reformation, and particularly that aspect of it to which one owe the economic routinization of this-worldly asceticism in the form of the "calling" of one's occupation. It also presents information on secondary literature on Max Weber including books like Arthur Mitzman's "The Iron Cage: An Historical Interpretation of Max Weber," and Marianne Weber's "Max Weber: A Biography."

The article discusses the book "Visions of the Sociological Tradition," by Donald N. Levine. Sociologist Donald Levine in this volume has brought out his interpretation of sociology's historical patrimony, its development and its mission. The book is a testimony to a scholar whose appreciation and concern for the history of sociological thought are exemplary. As much of an Africanist as a theorist, Levine easily navigates and explores the various theoretical currents. He is, of course, not the first to provide an account of sociology and he himself notes up front that there are many ways of telling such a good story. He provides us in the first two parts with visions of yesterday and tomorrow as frames of today. First, visions of the past as narratives; here he singles out six of these histories in search of a tradition from positivist and pluralist to humanist and contextualist to points in between, namely synthetic narratives. The next journey takes him to visions of the future, in the form of seven national traditions in search of the good society; Hellenic, British, French, German, Marxian, Italian and American.

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]