C. Wright Mills and the Public Sociology of Peace

Abstract

This chapter engages with two aspects of C. Wright Mills’ work, his writings on the sociological imagination, and on the prospects of a Third World War. The first is widely acclaimed in Mills Studies, the second completely neglected. Mills’ work on the sociological imagination established an approach to sociology that anticipated Burawoy’s injunction to public sociology four decades later, committing sociologists to develop an ethical responsibility to research and practice that makes a difference to the lives of ordinary men and women. The chapter introduces the features of Mills’ work as a precursor to the use that the author makes of Mills’ work in establishing what he calls the public sociology of peace processes. It outlines the relatively new field of sociological endeavour and its Millsian bedrock. The chapter ends by using this example to point to the enduring influence of Mills’ work to understanding 21st-century global challenges and to the public sociology of peace processes in particular.