The intellectual takes as a starting point his self and relates the world to his own sensibilities; the scientist accepts an existing field of knowledge and seeks to map out the unexplored terrain.

S. His most influential books are The End of Ideology (1960) The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973). ; his dissertation was entitled "The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties" the title of his first book.

He has been described as "one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era. " His three best known works are The End of Ideology The Coming of Post-Industrial Society and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.