Theda Skocpol is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, Director of the Center for American Political Studies, and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. She is the author The Missing Middle: Working Families and the Future of American Social Policy and Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life.

The work of Barrington Moore, Jr., is one of the landmarks of modern social science. A distinguished roster of contributors here discusses the influence of his best-known work, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Their individual perspectives combine in delineating Moore's contributions to the transformation of comparative and historical social science over the past several decades.

The essays in Democracy, Revolution, and History all address substantive and methodological problems, asking questions about the different historical paths toward democratic or nondemocratic political outcomes. Following Moore's example, they use well-researched comparative cases to make their arguments. In the process, they demonstrate how vital Moore's work remains to contemporary research in the social sciences. This volume points, as well, to new frontiers of scholarship, suggesting lines of work that build upon Moore's achievements.