C. Wright Mills

"One of the leading public intellectuals of twentieth-century America and a pioneering and brilliant social scientist, C. Wright Mills left a legacy of interdisciplinary and hard-hitting work, including two books that changed the way many people viewed their lives and the structure of power in the United States: White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite (1956). Mills persistently challenged the status quo within his profession - as in The Sociological Imagination (1959) - and within his country, until his untimely death in 1962. This collection of letters and writings, edited by his daughters, allows readers to see behind Mills's public persona for the first time.". "This volume charts his journey from Waco, Texas, to New York City and his professorship at Columbia College, from political discussions in Greenwich Village to interviews with intellectual dissidents in Eastern Europe and the newly empowered revolutionaries in Cuba.". "Mills's letters to prominent figures - including Saul Alinsky, Daniel Bell, Lewis Coser, Carlos Fuentes, Hans Gerth, Irving Howe, Dwight Macdonald, Robert K. Merton, Ralph Miliband, William Miller, David Riesman, and Harvey Swados - are joined by his letters to family members, letter-essays to an imaginary friend in Russia, personal narratives by his daughters, and annotations drawing on published and unpublished material, including the FBI file on Mills."--BOOK JACKET.

C. Wright Mills is best remembered for his highly acclaimed work The Sociological Imagination, in which he set forth his views on how social science should be pursued. Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology in the United States, calling for a humanist sociology connecting the social, personal, and historical dimensions of our lives. The sociological imagination Mills calls for is a sociological vision, a way of looking at the world that can see links between the apparently private problems of the individual and important social issues. Leading sociologist Todd Gitlin brings this fortieth anniversary edition up to date with a lucid introduction in which he considers the ways social analysis has progressed since Mills first published his study in 1959. A classic in the field, this book still provides rich food for our imagination.

"The late C.Wright Mills was former Professor of Sociology at Columbia University."--BOOK JACKET.

>In 1956, sociologist C. Wright Mills published the classic book The Power Elite, which looked at how a narrow segment of the population with high positions in different institutions (legislators, corporations, the military) tended to make decisions for the population as a whole, with the consensus among these actors displacing authentic democracy. - [Current Affairs](

"In a ... synthesis of much hitherto-scattered data, the authors give new meaning to the continuing debate over the relative importance of heredity and environment"--Back cover.