Book Review: Reintroducing Robert K. Merton

Abstract

Robert K. Merton (1910–2003) is an enigma. In his generation, he was highly influential across a range of issues in sociology including sociological theory, research strategies, and areas of neglect such as the sociology of science. Merton created more concepts and theories than any other sociologist. These include ambivalence, anomie-and-opportunity structure-theory, manifest and latent functions, Matilda effect, Matthew effect, Principle of Cumulative Advantage, role-set, the self-fulfilling prophecy, serendipity, status-set, and unanticipated consequences of purposive action. He also created new areas of research including the sociology of scientific discovery and the prestige of famous scientists. Merton was also at key institutions that had a major impact on sociology such as Columbia University in New York. Merton (1965), his text-book 1949 Social Theory and Social Structure (Merton, 1949) went into many editions. In 1994, Merton became the first sociologist to e awarded the National Medical of Science. Prior to Crothers’s study of Merton, the only full length evaluation was undertaken by Piotr Sztompka (1986) Robert K. Merton. An Intellectual Portrait on the occasion of Merton’s 75th birthday. The Berliner Journal fuer Soziologie published a special collection to celebrate his work 100 years from his birth in 1900 (Mueller et al., 2010). Despite his presence in American sociology, Merton may have laid the foundations for his own demise in his famous view of scientific progress or lack of it. Playing with Newton’s aphorism “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” Merton claimed that any science that continues to stand on the shoulders of its founders is destined to fail. The other irony is that Merton made major contributions to the sociology of scientific success and professional prestige in his theories of serendipity, the Matthew effect and the Principle of Cumulative Advantage. Cynically we might simplify his conclusions by noting that people who are famous continue to be famous even when the reasons for their fame have evaporated. Merton also worked with Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) on audience research for radio and television from which Merton went on to perfect the idea of the focused group interview. Charles Crothers offers insights into the demise of Merton’s influence and provides arguments to restore Merton to modern sociology. Merton became influential to some extent in the shadow of Talcott Parsons and functionalism against which he developed 1105711 JCS0010.1177/1468795X221105711Journal of Classical SociologyBook Review book-review2022