Social Science and Latin America: Promises to Keep

Abstract

During his intellectual and academic life, Immanuel Wallerstein always makes contributions that are the subject of intense debate and controversy. Now he has given us, as an additional legacy to complete his four years of brilliant, hard, and—why not?—controversial work on behalf of our science as the President of the International Sociological Association (ISA), and as a contribution to commencing the 14th World Congress, another powerful provocation regarding the current state of the art of sociology, or better put, social science. He has done this with reference to the contributions sociological thinking has made, the challenges that social science has encountered, and the promises that social science should ful?ll. The provocation is broad and taken to its extreme.