Blackwell Reference Online

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Social change is a major focus of S. N. Eisenstadt's sociological work. It runs as a thread that binds together many of his works, from his earliest studies on absorption of immigrants (1952) and empires (1963), through his explorations in Axial civilizations (see, e.g., 1986), up to his later works about multiple modernities (among others, 2003). A recurring theme in Eisenstadt's work is his emphasis on endemic factors – in-built tensions, contradictions, conflicts, and antinomies – as accounting for changes in, and transformations of, the social reality. In early formulations of this perspective, he already states that innovation and change are not external to institutional systems. They are aspects of the process of institutionalization and the working of social institutions ( Eisenstadt 1965, 1968, 1970 ). He carries on this principle of dialectical transformation to his analyses of the dynamics of civilizations and modernity, which indeed once led Robert Bellah to describe Eisenstadt as a “non-Marxist Marxist.” From this standpoint, Eisenstadt elaborates typologies of social changes according to their scopes and impacts. He speaks of macro sociohistorical, civilizational, and epochal transformations, differentiating them from more restricted intra-epochal and intracivilizational changes. When he focuses on epochal transformations, he draws the distinction between major sociohistorical ... log in or subscribe to read full text