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Shmuel Eisenstadt

Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt was an Israeli sociologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known for his work on youth, civilizations and the theory of multiple modernities.

1923 to 2010Theory of multiple modernitiesComparative study of civilizationsSociology of youthIsrael Prize in social sciences

Born: 10 September 1923, Warsaw
Died: 2 September 2010, Jerusalem
Occupation: sociologist, university teacher
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Chicago

Shmuel Eisenstadt was born in 1923 in Warsaw

Eisenstadt was born in Warsaw in 1923. His widowed mother brought him to Jerusalem, and he was educated in Palestine from the age of 12. In 1937 he joined the Haganah.

He began studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1940. He earned an M.A. in 1944 and a Ph.D. in sociology in 1947 under Martin Buber. He then did postdoctoral work at the London School of Economics and returned when the War of Independence broke out.

After the war he helped plan the sociology department and the social sciences faculty at the Hebrew University. He headed the sociology department from 1950 to 1969 and became Rose Isaacs professor in 1959. He was a guest professor at many universities abroad and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.

His research covered youth, empires, civilizations, modernization and Israeli society. His book From Generation to Generation appeared in 1956, and The Political Systems of Empires won the McIver Prize. He argued that fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon.

He retired in 1990 and remained professor emeritus, continuing to write and teach. He died on 2 September 2010. He left a wife, two sons and a daughter, the scholar Irit Meir.