Daniel Bell, influential sociologist, dies at 91

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Daniel Bell, a leading sociologist who wrote groundbreaking books about the demise of revolutionary politics and about the economy and lifestyle of a post-industrial society, has died. He was 91.

His son, David, says Bell died at his Cambridge, Mass., home on Tuesday after a short illness.

Bell was a teen radical who in middle age became an apostle of pragmatism. He is credited for at least two seminal works: “The End of Ideology,” which predicted a post-Marxist, post conservative era, and “The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society,” in which he prophesied the shift from a manufacturing economy to one based on technology.

Bell was a a widely quoted essayist, a co-editor of The Public Interest, a neo-conservative journal; and a professor of sociology at Harvard University and Columbia University.