John Brewer on C. Wright Mills

The late sociologist C. Wright Mills is in the eyes of many best summed up by one incredibly influential book, The Sociological Imagination, in which he famously urges the academy to "translate private troubles into public issues." The native of Texas was a prime mover in the explosion of leftist thought that pre-occupied the West in the 1960s (he helped popularize the term "New Left," for example). His trilogy of academic books on American society -- The New Men of Power (1948), White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite (1956) -- set the tone for a critique that echoed for decades. Wright Mills himself missed this moment - he died of a heart attack in 1962 at age 45.

British sociologist John Brewer is a passionate admirer of Wright Mills, and his examination of Wright Mills's broader oeuvre includes the late academic's work on foreign policy as worthy of consideration alongside his work on of the discipline or the American way. In this podcast, Brewer, who teaches at Queen’s University, Belfast and is a former president of the British Sociological Association, discusses C. Wright Mills' background and his affinity for European-style social science but American-style life., something he describes as a "love-hate relationship."

"I describe Mills, in one sense, as the most European of American sociologists," Brewer tells interview David Edmonds, "because he does recognize the importance of history, he recognizes the importance of politics, he recognizes the importance of individual biography, and this special imagination that sociology has, this promise of the discipline that, as he describes it, is one that tries to blend an emphasis upon individuals, and their biography and lived experience upon the social structure, and upon history. In that sense, he is very, very European."

In this Social Science Bites podcast, Brewer also discusses Wright Mills as a popularizer, both of sociology as a discipline in the academy but importantly, of sociology as relevant to the wider populace as something that actually delivers a message that matters in their lives. In fact, he popularized the term "New Left"