The Life and Work of C. Wright Mills: An Historical Perspective.

Abstract

Keywords: Mills, Gerth, sociology, power elite, white collar, sociological imagination

This article analyzes the interesting, though brief, scholarly career of the radical American sociologist, C. Wright Mills. Despite the fact that he wrote a number of pioneering works in a short period of time,
Mills remains largely ignored in twenty-first century sociological literature. Mills challenged conventional wisdom by arguing that sociology should be approached from a less academic standpoint involving the linkage of private problems with public issues. According to Mills, the contemporary approach to sociology did little to address the true problems of society and needed to be replaced with greater activism on the part of scholars.