The Sociology Book

46

MANY PERSONAL

T R O U B L E S M U S T

BE UNDERSTOOD

IN TERMS OF

PUBLIC ISSUES

CHARLES WRIGHT MILLS (1916–1962)

D

uring the Cold War that

developed after World

War II, very few US

sociologists openly adopted a

socialist standpoint, particularly

during the anti-communist

witch-hunt that was known as

McCarthyism. Yet Charles Wright

Mills went against the grain; his

most influential books criticized

the military and commercial power

elites of his time.

Wright Mills risked not only

falling foul of the authorities during

this “Red Scare” era of the 1940s

and 1950s, but also rejection by

mainstream sociologists. However,

he was no apologist for Marxist

ideology and instead presented a

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The sociological

imagination

KEY DATES

1848 In The Communist

Manifesto, Karl Marx and

Friedrich Engels describe

progress in terms of class

struggles and depict capitalist

society as a conflict between

the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

1899 In The Theory of the

Leisure Class, Thorstein

Veblen suggests that the

business class pursues profit

at the expense of progress

or social welfare.

1904–05 Max Weber

describes a society stratified

by class, status, and power

in The Protestant Ethic and

the Spirit of Capitalism.

1975 Michel Foucault looks

at power and resistance in

Discipline and Punish.