ABSTRACT
The present state of sociology may be characterized as a flourishing decentered discipline in different parts of the world, including those in Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia which a quarter of a century ago were for the most part suppressed by political regimes. The internet has opened up new areas of research and new data bases, there has been a significant proliferation of specialty areas in various sections of the American Sociological Association, and new sophisticated statistical techniques have sprung up to demonstrate, hopefully with rigor, new concepts.
