Marion Joseph Levy Jr. (December 12, 1918 – May 26, 2002) was an American sociologist noted for his work on

modernization theory Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...

. Born in

Galveston, Texas Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Gal ...

, Levy received his doctorate in sociology from Harvard, studying under

Talcott Parsons Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in socio ...

. Levy was hired at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

in 1947. He served as Musgrave Professor of Sociology and International Affairs until retirement in 1989. Levy was an advocate of

structural-functionalism Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability". This approach looks at society through a macro-level o ...

in sociology. His two-volume ''Modernization and the Structure of Societies'' was a systematic statement of modernization theory. Levy also produced analytic works on Chinese and Japanese history. Levy was perhaps best known outside academia for an extremely short book, ''Levy's Laws of the Disillusionment of the True Liberal''. The cynical "laws", originally numbering six and ultimately totaling 11, became a commonly quoted source of condensed sociopolitical wisdom.

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