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Resumo

This paper considers the work of Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt mainly in the perspective of the author's specific encounters with his work, in the course of which Eisenstadt's work is compared with that of Talcott Parsons. There are several aspects of this programme. First, brief attention is given to the biographies of Eisenstadt and Parsons; second, their styles and approaches to sociological analysis are compared and contrasted; third, the subject of their somewhat different approaches to what I will call globality is raised, against the background of Eisenstadt's great reliance on the later work of Karl Jaspers and the somewhat problematic issue of civilization(s). The discussion of Eisenstadt's deployment of Jaspers' insights is explored with particular reference to the former's Japanese Civilization. Often regarded as the graveyard of comparative sociology, Eisenstadt's attempt to place Japan in a comparative context is, in a number of respects, the consummation of his life's work, though he had many years yet to live. The paper concludes with a question concerning whether global consciousness has superseded, or transcended, the contrast between differential modernization and global civilization.

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