C. Wright Mills

C. Wright Mills is one of the few sociologists of the twentieth century who wrote within the classical tradition of sociology (Elwell, 2000). As a professor of sociology at Columbia University, Mills wrote throughout the 1940s and 1950s, publishing in major newspapers and journals of opinion and in "little magazines" in equal measure (Summers, 2000). Two of his books, White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite (1956), sold very well even outside academia and were very influential upon the early New Left (Summers, 2000). Thus, even though Mills died in March 1962 at the age of 45, his ten books and nearly 200 articles, essays and reviews had already won him an international reputation.

Mills's vision, as expressed in his work, demonstrates a holistic view of socio-cultural systems with strong influences from Karl Marx and other 19th century theorists, as well as prevailing social theories such as realism and postmodernism. Mills believed that to understand nation-states as international actors we first needed to understand the sociological relationships that formed each of those nation-states. And to understand such sociological relationships, we first needed to understand individual human development. But we could not understand any of these factors fully unless we understood each factor's relationship to the other. Thus, he argued that to study all human relations, it was necessary to recognize human variety and apply sociological theories that took i

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velopment of a permanent war establishment alongside a privately incorporated economy inside a virtual political vacuum" formed the men at the top who were selected and formed by such institutional trends (Mills, 1958, p. 31). Mills's holistic sociological view was an attempt to explain the effects of all aspects of human history upon the development of the individual human psyche. He believed that a "sociological imagination" allowed analysts to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society (Mills, 1959, p. 6). He contended that however limited or broad the features of social reality examined by classical social analysts, those who were imaginatively aware of the promise of their work consistently asked three sorts of questions. First, what is the structure of society as a whole and what are the relations, similarities and differences between its essential components? How does one society differ from another and what are the meanings of any particular features for its continuance and for its change? Second, where does this society stand in human history and what are the mechanics of its evolution? How does it differ from other periods and what are its characteristic ways of history making?

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