ABSTRACT
The idea that the Key Sociologists series should include a volume on Daniel Bell came originally from Chris Rojek, formerly Senior Editor in Sociology at Routledge. When he suggested it to me on a sunny Friday afternoon at an end-of-term departmental celebration here in Hobart it seemed an instantly appropriate and appealing project and it has remained so long after the conviviality of the occasion has been forgotten. Bell is an attractive and important figure and, although I could claim no particular scholarly expertise in his work at the time, I realized that it had had an important influence on my own efforts, as well as those of others, to theorize social change. Bell’s work is a central element in the sociological canon and, like it or not, it infuses the discipline, often guiding the direction of sociological thought and always challenging orthodoxies, whether they be functionalist, Marxist or empiricist.
