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C. Wright Mills and American Sociology
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19
1
David Riesman to Mills 5/2/58, C. Wright Mills Papers, Center for American History, University of
Texas at Austin (henceforth “UT”). For Riesman, who began his career as a lawyer and never earned a graduate degree in the social sciences, the state of American sociology was simply not that significant.
2
Seymour Martin Lipset and Neil Smelser, “Change and Controversy in Recent American Sociology,”
British Journal of Sociology, 12 (March, 1961), 50 f.
3
Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York: Basic Books, 1971), 15. Mills
actually became a full professor at Columbia in July, 1956, at the age of thirty-nine, achieving the position earlier in his career than did Talcott Parsons. At the same time, it must be recognized that Mills taught at the undergraduate Columbia College, and not in the graduate Department of Sociology that was so influential in the discipline.
4
Jim Miller, “Democracy and the Intellectual: C. Wright Mills Reconsidered,” Salmagundi 70-71 (1986),
83, 85. For accounts of Mills that concentrate more on his status as a public intellectual than his grounding in sociology, see also Kevin Mattson, Intellectuals in Action: The Origins of the New Left and Radical Liberalism, 1945-1970 (University Park: Penn. State Press, 2002), 43-96; Richard Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 249-61; and Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals (New York: Basic, 1987), 90-95. Mills’s relationship to American sociology is a main theme of Irving Louis Horowitz, C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian (New York: Free Press, 1983), but Horowitz suggests that Mills’s iconoclastic personality left him outside the discourse of professional sociology from the very start.
5
For characterizations of American sociology during this period, see Robert Bannister, Sociology and
Scientism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 188-238; Henrika Kuklick, “‘A Scientific Revolution’: Sociological Theory in the United States, 1930-1945,” Sociological Inquiry, 43, 3-22.
6
“The Language and Ideas of Ancient China,” unpublished graduate paper, 1940, reprinted in Irving Louis
Horowitz, ed., Power, Politics, and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford, 1963), 463.
7
Reflection, Behavior,and Culture, University of Texas M.A. Thesis, 1939
8
Howard Brick, “"Society," in Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century, vol. II, eds.
Stanley Kutler, Robert Dallek, David Hollinger, and Thomas McGraw (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996), 917-939.
9
David Kettler and Volker Meja, Karl Mannheim and the Crisis of Liberalism (New Brunswick:
Transaction, 1995), 193-245.
10
Mills to Merton, 11/12/40, UT Box 4B 339.
11
The Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge,” American Journal of Sociology
(November, 1940), 319.
12
Ibid., 318.
13
Merton, “Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge,” Journal of Liberal Religion, 1941; Merton to
Mills 4/16/40; Merton to Mills 11/6/40; UT Box 4B 339.
14
Ibid.
15
“Methodological Consequences,” 330.
16
Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York: Basic, 1970), 481-512; Pierre
Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology differs from that of Gouldner in important respects. While Gouldner focuses his attention on the moral responsibilities of the individual social scientist, Bourdieu undertakes a more expansive exploration of the ways in which the basic presuppositions of social science, in objectifying the social world, structures its conclusions. Mills’s stress on the moral and political responsibility of the sociologist in The Sociological Imagination approximates Gouldner’s position, but his call for the “detailed self-location of social science” in “Methodological Consequences,” though not fully developed, anticipates Bourdieu in certain respects.
17
“The Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 49, No. 2,
September, 1943), 179.
18
Ibid.,168 f.
19
Merton to Mills, 4/5/41, UT Box 4B 339.
20
Merton to Kingsley Davis, 12/4/44, letter in author’s possession.
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19
1
David Riesman to Mills 5/2/58, C. Wright Mills Papers, Center for American History, University of
Texas at Austin (henceforth “UT”). For Riesman, who began his career as a lawyer and never earned a
graduate degree in the social sciences, the state of American sociology was simply not that significant.
2
Seymour Martin Lipset and Neil Smelser, “Change and Controversy in Recent American Sociology,”
British Journal of Sociology, 12 (March, 1961), 50 f.
3
Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York: Basic Books, 1971), 15. Mills
actually became a full professor at Columbia in July, 1956, at the age of thirty-nine, achieving the position
earlier in his career than did Talcott Parsons. At the same time, it must be recognized that Mills taught at
the undergraduate Columbia College, and not in the graduate Department of Sociology that was so
influential in the discipline.
4
Jim Miller, “Democracy and the Intellectual: C. Wright Mills Reconsidered,” Salmagundi 70-71 (1986),
83, 85. For accounts of Mills that concentrate more on his status as a public intellectual than his grounding
in sociology, see also Kevin Mattson, Intellectuals in Action: The Origins of the New Left and Radical
Liberalism, 1945-1970 (University Park: Penn. State Press, 2002), 43-96; Richard Pells, The Liberal Mind
in a Conservative Age (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 249-61; and Russell Jacoby, The Last
Intellectuals (New York: Basic, 1987), 90-95. Mills’s relationship to American sociology is a main theme
of Irving Louis Horowitz, C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian (New York: Free Press, 1983), but
Horowitz suggests that Mills’s iconoclastic personality left him outside the discourse of professional
sociology from the very start.
5
For characterizations of American sociology during this period, see Robert Bannister, Sociology and
Scientism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 188-238; Henrika Kuklick, “‘A
Scientific Revolution’: Sociological Theory in the United States, 1930-1945,” Sociological Inquiry, 43, 3-
22.
6
“The Language and Ideas of Ancient China,” unpublished graduate paper, 1940, reprinted in Irving Louis
Horowitz, ed., Power, Politics, and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford,
1963), 463.
7
Reflection, Behavior,and Culture, University of Texas M.A. Thesis, 1939
8
Howard Brick, “"Society," in Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century, vol. II, eds.
Stanley Kutler, Robert Dallek, David Hollinger, and Thomas McGraw (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1996), 917-939.
9
David Kettler and Volker Meja, Karl Mannheim and the Crisis of Liberalism (New Brunswick:
Transaction, 1995), 193-245.
10
Mills to Merton, 11/12/40, UT Box 4B 339.
11
The Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge,” American Journal of Sociology
(November, 1940), 319.
12
Ibid., 318.
13
Merton, “Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge,” Journal of Liberal Religion, 1941; Merton to
Mills 4/16/40; Merton to Mills 11/6/40; UT Box 4B 339.
14
Ibid.
15
“Methodological Consequences,” 330.
16
Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York: Basic, 1970), 481-512; Pierre
Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992). Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology differs from that of Gouldner in important respects. While
Gouldner focuses his attention on the moral responsibilities of the individual social scientist, Bourdieu
undertakes a more expansive exploration of the ways in which the basic presuppositions of social science,
in objectifying the social world, structures its conclusions. Mills’s stress on the moral and political
responsibility of the sociologist in The Sociological Imagination approximates Gouldner’s position, but his
call for the “detailed self-location of social science” in “Methodological Consequences,” though not fully
developed, anticipates Bourdieu in certain respects.
17
“The Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 49, No. 2,
September, 1943), 179.
18
Ibid.,168 f.
19
Merton to Mills, 4/5/41, UT Box 4B 339.
20
Merton to Kingsley Davis, 12/4/44, letter in author’s possession.
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