ABSTRACT
Over the past four decades, international development and social change have been writ large in the intellectual evolution of sociology and of related disciplines. Countless scholars have attempted to produce new paradigmatic fibers from which to weave richly varied conceptual fabrics in the quest for theoretical explanation and practical wisdom. Definitional criteria have been progressively enlarged. In one sense this has been a finite process, for there are obvious limits imposed by a global system that embraces all the regions of the world. Irving Louis Horowitz was among the first to acknowledge the existence of such a world system, believing that the developmentalist perspective provides the truest approximation to the very structure of the social scientific community. In a long and distinguished career, he has consciously undertaken the continuing effort to go beyond a single systemic component of particular personal interest-Latin America-in the quest for a broad and fundamental cultural convergence. In so doing, he has also breathed fresh air into a field of study and a discipline seeking to break out of traditionalistic bonds.
