Founded by Rene Worms in Paris in 1893, the International Institute of Sociology (IIS) is the oldest continuous sociological association of any kind in the world. The IIS also happens to be the oldest continuous international association in the social sciences. Indeed, Worms's models for the IIS were the recently formed international institutes in law and in statistics. In the same year that he founded the IIS, Worms (1869–1926) also started the Revue internationale de sociologies (two years before Durkheimians would found the Annee sociologigue) and a book series, the Bibliotheque Sociologique Internationale, which would in time publish more than fifty volumes.

In 1893 Worms was twenty-four years old. His organizational skills are even more impressive when we consider where the IIS's founding falls in relation to that of other major associations in the discipline of sociology, including the discipline's only other major international association...