Originally published in 1972, social change was one of the key issues in the study of Western industrial society: by blending widely accepted social science concepts with profound historical insight, Professor Cochran synthesizes scholarship of the time in a stimulating interpretation of the causes and consequences of social change in the United States and the Western world since 1900.

The author argues for the acceptance, by historians, of a behavioural science approach to social change, and applies this to twentieth-century America. Concentrating on the changes in the socially conditioned habits of behaviour that form institutions, he looks in turn at Education and Democracy, Communication and Community, Propriety and Managerial Enterprise, Demographic Forces, and the Character of Twentieth-Century Change.

This book is good evidence of how successful the new ‘social institutional’ approach to social history can be. It was essential reading for sociologists and historians interested in the development of modern industrial society. Today it can be read in its historical context.