ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with themes of paramount importance for the sociology of the twenty-first century. It discusses issues that are constantly recurrent in the sociological literature, ones to which the authors devote considerable space, and on which they conduct analysis of signal interest. The book shows that sociology must become more pluralistic and more positivist: it must concern itself more closely with the 'real world'; it must 'look more carefully instead of thinking too quickly '. It explains the limitations of sociology in the former Soviet empire and the features that it should assume in the twenty-first century. The book deals specifically with the new frontiers of sociology. The book describes new possibilities for sociology in so far as democratization and economie development, in different regions of the world with different experiences of modernization in the past half century.
