Examines the conflict between modern and postmodern theories in sociology and attempts to bridge the divide between them.

Nicos P. Mouzelis is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Introduction; Part I. The Theoretical Background: The Development of the Agency-Structure Problematic: 1. From Parsons' to Giddens' synthesis; Part II. Parsonian and Post-Parsonian Developments: 2. Parsons and the development of individual rights; 3. Evolution and democracy: Parsons and the collapse of communism; 4. Post-Parsonian theory I: neo-functionalism and beyond; Postscript: Alexander's cultural sociology; 5. Post-Parsonian theory II: beyond the normative and the utilitarian; Part III. Agency and Structure: Reworking some Basic Conceptual Tools: 6. Social and system integration: Lockwood, Habermas and Giddens; 7. The subjectivist-objectivist divide: against transcendence; 8. Habitus and reflexivity: restructuring Bourdieu's theory of practice; Part IV. Bridges Between Modern and Late/Postmodern Theorizing: 9. Modernity: a non-Eurocentric conceptualization; 10. Ethical relativism: between scientism and cultural relativism; 11. Cognitive relativism: between positivistic and relativistic thinking in the social sciences; 12. Social causation: between social constructionism and critical realism; Part V. Towards a Non-Essentialist Holism: 13. Grand narratives: contextless and context-sensitive theories; 14. The actor-structure dimension: anti-conflationist holism; 15. The micro-macro dimension: anti-essentialist holism; 16. The inter-institutional dimension: beyond economism and culturalism; Instead of Conclusion: twelve rules for the construction of an open-ended holistic paradigm; Appendix: In defence of 'grand' historical sociology.