In the 1950s, under the aegis of such leading sociologists as Talcott Parsons, anthropologists like Clyde Kluckhohn of Harvard and Alfred Kroeber of the University of California at Berkeley, as well as political scientists Gabriel Almond and Lucien Pye, of Yale and MIT, respectively, the analysis of societal and political culture came to play a large, indeed key, role in social theory. Max Weber was a major influence on Parsons and the political scientists, while the anthropologists derived their theoretical convictions from other sources. All agreed, however, that cultural factors exercise a powerful influence on the manner in which societies organize themselves. Few believed that culture functions alone. Culture interacts with other factors that affect its development and direction, even as it affects theirs. These academics also believed that there are limits to cultural and behavioral variation, derived from a common human biology and the requirements of effective organization. There was no unanimity in the social sciences, even among those believing in the importance of cultural factors to social behavior, but an emphasis on the importance of cultural variables was the dominant mode of discourse. In this article, the author presents some perspectives on the organization of societies. (Contains 1 note.)