Lipset S Agrarian Socialism

"Reflecting on the seminal work of Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan - A Study in Political Sociology, academics and political practitioners revisit these questions and consider whether the reputation of the best-known social science text on Saskatchewan still holds. As the political practitioners make clear, the geographic and constitutional boundaries may remain as they were, but the economic and cultural boundaries that once defined provinces have manifestly altered if not disappeared as a result of technological change and global perspective."--BOOK JACKET.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1950.

A revision of the author's thesis (Ph.D.), Columbia University, 1949. Cf. p. [ix]

In this study on democracy and democratic systems, two scholars offer an expansive view of democratic systems and explain why democracy has succeeded in some countries and has failed in others.

Why socialism has failed to play a significant role in the United States - the most developed capitalist industrial society and hence, ostensibly, fertile ground for socialism - has been a critical question of American history and political development. This study surveys the various explanations for this phenomenon of American political exceptionalism.

This collection of Lipset's major essays in political sociology is in a real sense a follow-up or sequel to Political Mind and The First New Nation. It provides a broad panorama of continuing interest, developing a sociological perspective in comparative and historical analysis, with particular reference to politics, modernization, and social stratification. Robert E. Scott in The Midwest Journal of Political Science, said "this book has an essential unity. The subjects discussed are interesting and important to the political scientists and the observations offered stimulating and significant. Both the student and the mature scholar can benefit." Professor Lipset describes this collection of his major essays in political sociology, as "in a real sense a follow-up or sequel to Political Man and The First New Nation. This volume provides a broad panorama of continuing interest, developing a sociological perspective in comparative and historical analysis, with particular reference to politics, modernization, and social stratification. The opening section of the book contains, in addition to a valuable new introductory chapter, essays that interpret varying levels of socioeconomic development in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Other essays deal with such matters as the contrasting modes of modernization in Europe and Asia, the role of values and religious beliefs in the emergence of political systems, the effect of religion on American politics from the founding of the Republic to the present. A concluding section analyzes major works of political sociology in the light of contemporary ideas. Many chapters have been revised to include recent data. Seymour Martin Lipset is Munro Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. Prior to his current appointment, he was Markham Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. Among his many books are Political Man; Agrarian Socialism; Consensus and Conflict in Political Sociology. In addition, he has co-authored The Politics of Unreason; Dialogues in American Politics; and Union Democracy.

Originally published: Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1948.