With this monograph, Vasilis Maglaras completes a research program that refers to the social theory of Talcott Parsons. Here, he focuses on the youth work of the American thinker, which is considered by many to be the most important, as it goes beyond the horizon of the science of sociology and problematizes issues related to social theory in general; in addition, it intersects with almost all the cognitive objects of social and humanities studies.

The issues of values, which shape individual and social action, the theme of the genesis and development of the capitalist mode of production, the issues of social relations, and those that arise from the criticism of radical positivism and utilitarianism emerge as central to the presentation and reconstruction of Parsons' socio-theoretical problematic. The author systematically follows the transitions of Parsons' problematic from the study of action to the study of the functions of social structure, transitions that do not imply discontinuities in his work, but differentiations in his thinking.

This is a research effort to analyze as fully as possible Parsons' youth work and specifically "The Structure of Social Action" and to connect it with the highly significant and interesting theoretical discussions of the time in which it is written.