n address to the conference, which is published in the Review, on any topic the president considers timely. Many of these addresses focus on narrowly tailored subjects of interest to the president, but which provide few insights into development of the field as a whole. Many others, however, stress historical and current developments in the discipline and thus can serve as prime research sources for charting evolutionary trends. The presidential addresses for the years 1975, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1993 have been selected to review changes in sociological thinking over the last 20 years. One presidential address in 1969 is also selected to provide some historical context.
Some caution should be invoked in interpreting these addresses. Differences in training of the presidents, in the ages of reaching the presidency of the association, and of each president's own particular interests can obfuscate an accurate reading of evolutionary trends from their speeches. Nevertheless, a reading of the addresses offers a firsthand access to the minds of those whom the membership of the American Sociological Association chose to represent the sociological discipline. Thus, these addresses may reasonably provide some reliable estimate of changes in the field over time.
President Arnold Rose (1969), whose address was delivered by his wife because of the president's untimely death, presented a speech entitled "Varieties of Sociological Imagination." In his address, Rose discussed the growth of the discipline of sociology since the Second World War. The these of Rose's argument was that there is not only one sociological imagination, but several kinds, and often they reside uncomfortably within individual sociologists. Generally, there are two major imaginations--the macrosociological and microsociological approach. In other words, the key dividing ground in post-World War II sociology consisted of those who advocate grand so...