Roland Robertson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. His books include International Systems and the Modernization of Societies (with J P Nettl, 1968) The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (1970) Meaning and Change: Explorations in the Cultural Sociology of Modern Societies (1978), Religion and Global Order (co-edited with William R Garrett, 1991) and Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity (co-edited with Bryan S Turner