This article discusses how Florestan Fernandes and Gino Germani, in translating the American sociology of modernization to the specificities of the Brazilian and Argentinean societies, respectively, succeeded in achieving creative theoretical syntheses. In order to discern such theoretical potential, the article contrasts the formulations of those authors with the arguments of Talcott Parsons, a fundamental figure in the systematization of the sociology of modernization. Understanding the process of translation as a dynamic intellectual phenomenon, the article recoups the main texts of Fernandes, Germani, and Parsons, of the years 1960-1970, a decisive period in which the reciprocal displacements between their theorizations were becoming clearer.
Social thought; Sociology of development; Florestan Fernandes; Gino Germani; Talcott Parsons