Mills, C. Wright

Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright Mills), 1916–62, American sociologist, b. Waco, Tex. He studied at the Univ. of Texas (A.B., M.A., 1939) and the Univ. of Wisconsin (Ph.D., 1942) and spent his academic career (1946–62) as a professor at Columbia Univ. A controversial figure, Mills advocated a comparative world sociology and criticized intellectuals for not using their freedom responsibly by working for social change. He was an advocate of an economic determinism heavily influenced by Karl Marx and Max Weber. His best-known book is The Power Elite (1956), in which he explained the power structure of postwar American society in terms of a ruling militarized corporate-capitalist oligarchy. Mills's other books include White Collar (1951), in which he discussed the propertyless middle-class workers who provided a vast staff for the ruling elite, The Sociological Imagination (1959), Listen, Yankee (1960), and The Marxists (1962).

Bibliography

See biography by I. L. Horowitz (1983); K. Mills and P. Mills, eds., C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings (2000).

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Mills, C. (Charles) Wright (1916–62) sociologist; born in Waco, Texas. A radical humanist and professor of sociology at Columbia University (1946–62), he was a leading critic of American society who became controversial for his rejection of value-free, scientific sociology in favor of socially responsible social science. He was in the vanguard of the 1950s radical revival. His important works include White Collar (1951), The Power Elite (1956), The Sociological Imagination (1959), and "Letter to the New Left" (1960).