ABSTRACT
Robert Nisbet ended his review of Amitai Etzioni’s 1968 book The Active Society with the comment that “like a good major league shortstop, he knows how to go both ways, to his right and to his left.” I am delighted by the baseball metaphor, but the remark was not exactly meant as praise. The late Nisbet was just about the only truly classical conservative in sociology at that time (or since) and his American Sociological Review piece, laced with heavy irony, described Etzioni’s book as a work of eschatology in conformity with the New Left and countercultural spirit of protest so visible in that fateful year of 1968. “For those who prefer counter-eschatological sociology,” Nisbet wrote, “I recommend going back to one or two of Etzioni’s earlier works. He is a talented mind....”
