C. Wright Mills’ Program: Two Views

Let me begin by placing on the record my opinion that Mills has written a sound, brilliant and most timely political tract. In using the latter term I do not mean to put it into a minor category but to praise it as being in a great tradition of books which are of high intellectual quality but which also propose a program and sound a call for action. That an American sociologist of Mills’ standing who is also an unusually well informed and sophisticated analyst of political events should publish such a book is an event in the world struggle against war. If the book meets with the response from Mills’ fellow-intellectuals and from the physical scientists which I think it merits, it may prove a major turning point in that struggle.

Incidentally, one speculates on the implications of the fact that the essential contents of this book were first given a year ago in the national capital as Sidney Hillman Award Lectures. If by any chance this means that there are people ...