ABSTRACT
Cesar Grana was, by any standard employed, both a complex personality and a dedicated social scientist. The tensions between individual creativity and social participation are the meeting place of culture and sociology; for Grana it makes possible the love of the former without sacrificing the use of the latter. The sociological task at one level is to explain how people decide to discard some ideas and retain others, while the great majority simply fall into disuse. In this community of culture, social life is organized by a vast array of sentiments and feelings that pass from generation to generation, through family trees that sometimes turn outward and other times turn inward to enrich and protect themselves. Sociology has all but abandoned the search for national meanings, despite the obvious fact that being part of a nation continues to fascinate and inform some of the most important writers and writings of the period.
