What's So American about Talcott Parsons's Sociology?

This contribution to consideration of "Talcott Parsons and Politics" explores the kind of optimism of sociology's "incurable theorist" that is evident in his mature view of the USA as the world's "New Lead" society. Statements related to optimism can be identified in his extensive writings and this article focuses upon its expression when as an "early career academic" in the late 1920s and 1930s he laid the foundations for his life-long work in sociology. Parsons' sociology developed as the USA's twentieth century contribution unfolded. His "moderate optimism" about the viability of the American experiment shares deeply and intimately in his claim that sociology had finally emerged as an analytical social science oriented by the theory of social action. His mature work considers the "societal community" to be the peculiar focus for sociology's special scientific attention. The USA has taken on this "New Lead" role at the same time that the societal community itself has emerged from within American experience. The discussion here is as much a personal memoire of the author, revisiting efforts to understand how the earliest stages of Parsons's sociology were maintained by him over a long career. Parsons sociological scholarship exhibitedAmericancharacteristics. As sociology's "incurable theorist" he sought understanding of his own (American) situation, and its context, past and present, seeking to promote a social science that contributed positively to global society.