C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings - Paperback

by C. Wright Mills (Author), Kathryn Mills (Editor), Dan Wakefield (Introduction by)

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.

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to an imaginary friend in Russia, personal narratives by his daughters, and annotations drawing on published and unpublished material, including the FBI file on Mills.

Front Jacket

The extraordinary C. Wright Mills was an intellectual hero of the New Left, a model of the engaged academic. This volume of his letters and writings provides a fascinating insight into Mills as a person--as a family man and a friend--as well as a thinker. Mills packed so much into his terribly short life, and young people today should find inspiration in his enormous energy, his breadth of interest, and his political boldness.--Howard Zinn, Boston University

"This carefully and lovingly edited volume is bound to revive interest in the work and life of one of the most creative radical intellectuals of the postwar years."--Lewis A. Coser, Boston University

"C. Wright Mills was a passionate public citizen, and therefore, he wrote to be read beyond the academy. He succeeded, making many non-tenured people think, me included. This book further illuminates the life-force within this professor beyond borders."--Nat Hentoff, author of Living the Bill of Rights

"C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings is an invaluable guide to the thought and sensibilities of one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century. This book is a must for sociologists, social science students and historians."--Saul Landau, Hugh O. La Bounty Chair of Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge, California Polytechnic University

"The personal testimony of a courageous American thinker will afford younger readers a direct look at our past, and perhaps teach them--as Mills did for many of us--that living fully requires thinking largely."--Norman Birnbaum, Georgetown University Law Center

"Mills was among the most intellectually engaging of American social scientists, and he deserves our continuing attention. As these letters and autobiographical essays bring out, he exemplified both a highly personal perspective and a commitment to issues of basic public importance. He saw the connections between biography and intellectual insight, and in this wonderfully edited collection, his writings demonstrate a clarity of perception that adds to our understanding of both his work and his period." --Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council

Author Biography

C. Wright Mills was a maverick social scientist who taught in Copenhagen, London, and Mexico City in addition to the United States. His work has been translated into twenty-three languages. Kathryn Mills works for a book publisher in Boston. Pamela Mills teaches American literature and composition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Dan Wakefield is the author of New York in the Fifties (1992), which is the basis for a documentary film, Island in the City: The World of Spanish Harlem (1959), and many other works, including the best-selling novels Going All the Way (1970) and Selling Out (1985).