The Structure of Social Action by Talcott Parsons
Published 1937 · 368 pages · 300,000 words · about 20 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics & Society
How hard is The Structure of Social Action to read?
The Structure of Social Action scores 35 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 62 out of 100
- Highly specialized theoretical vocabulary drawn from multiple social-science traditions.
- Sentence structure: 65 out of 100
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- Pure social theory at the highest level of abstraction.
- Information density: 68 out of 100
- Extremely dense reconstruction of four major thinkers' entire theoretical systems.
- Narrative indirection: 22 out of 100
- The convergence thesis emerges slowly through four separate intellectual biographies.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- Analytical rather than symbolic. Theory rather than metaphor.
- Ironic distance: 80 out of 100
- Earnest, systematic academic tone throughout.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- The convergence thesis is stated clearly, though its implications are left for later work.
- Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
- Five parts. Four intellectual biographies plus synthesis. Over 700 pages.
How The Structure of Social Action is regarded
The Structure of Social Action holds a literary regard score of 62 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.