Abstract

Sociology and The Global Crisis: An Introduction SAGE Publications, Inc.1984DOI: 10.1177/002071528402500101 Edward A.Tiryakian Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA WHEN THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of this journal invited me to prepare this volume, the theme of "the global crisis" seemed an appropriate choice. First of all, however different the diagnoses, it is a cardinal fact of our world situation that for the past ten years or so there has been a world-wide experience of a crisis of enormous magnitude in socioeconomic terms. Second, although the cessation of the Vietnam War has not been followed by another East-West confrontation, yet internal and external violence in the Middle East and Latin America have erupted with great rapidity; in spite (or is it because of?) massive United States military assistance to many countries in those regions for stabilizing, "peace-keeping" efforts, it appears as if the political- military crises of these areas are persisting rather than diminishing. If ten years ago the world had eased into a situation of "detente," in the past five years there has been an uprise of severe tensions, not only between East and West (the failure of the Salt II Treaty, the invasion of Afghanistan, the September 1983 crisis