The Crisis of Our Age

Sorokin wrote this book in 1941in the middle of WW2 with Fascist and Communist totalitarianism in full swing. He very oddly identifies this disaster as the climax of decadent (he calls it "sensate") western european civilization, making a long list of trivial populist art, films, materialist cultural values etc.
The answer in his opinion is a return to the true values of a higher religious (he calls it "ideational") life, with man finding a new equilibrium as a noble creation in the image of God (s).
He strangely overlooks the fact that the Fascists and Communists were also claiming to represent higher noble ideals and were equally hard on "decadent" ideas.
In the event, post WW2 western democracy was strengthened so his analysis is show more simply wrong.
A much more perceptive look at the fragmentation of modern society can be found in Jane Jacobs great book "Systems of Survival", showing the need for both "commercials" (flexible adaptives) and "guardians" (structure protectors) - not all of one or all of the other. show less

One of the classics of sociology, this is more or less a condensation of his larger 'Social and Cultural Dynamics'. An interesting investigation into ideation and sensate culture, and the pros and cons of each. Limited ideational culture leads to flowering idealistic culture which decays into a nonproductive sensate culture, where a reformation returns to ideational culture again. He discusses the histories of culture and how these patterns appear through them. Not too long a read and it does get a little repetitive towards the end (perhaps it could have been shorter) but still a worthy read.