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The Causes of World War Three
C. Wright Mills
Paperback
Published July 31, 1987
About the author
C. Wright Mills
53 books290 followersCharles Wright Mills was an American sociologist and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journals, and is remembered for several books, such as
The Power Elite
,
White Collar: The American Middle Classes
and
The Sociological Imagination
.
Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post–World War II society, and he advocated public and political engagement over disinterested observation. One of Mills's biographers, Daniel Geary, writes that Mills's writings had a "particularly significant impact on New Left social movements of the 1960s era." It was Mills who popularized the term "New Left" in the U.S., in a 1960 open letter "Letter to the New Left".
Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post–World War II society, and he advocated public and political engagement over disinterested observation. One of Mills's biographers, Daniel Geary, writes that Mills's writings had a "particularly significant impact on New Left social movements of the 1960s era." It was Mills who popularized the term "New Left" in the U.S., in a 1960 open letter "Letter to the New Left".
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 17, 2016
"What I have been trying to say to intellectuals, preachers, scientists--as well as more generally to publics--can be put into one sentence: Drop the liberal rhetoric and the conservative default; they are now parts of one and the same official line; transcend that line."
I read the 1960 edition (an old copy with a back-pages ad for Martin Luther King's latest book). The focus is on the lack of original thinking and militaristic attitudes prevalent at the height of the Cold War, so the parts about the Soviet Union are irrelevant today. However, Mills is dead-on about the history and pattern of scientific thinking and overall intellectualism which impacts us today.
It's just under 200 pages and worth reading, if you stumble across a copy.
I read the 1960 edition (an old copy with a back-pages ad for Martin Luther King's latest book). The focus is on the lack of original thinking and militaristic attitudes prevalent at the height of the Cold War, so the parts about the Soviet Union are irrelevant today. However, Mills is dead-on about the history and pattern of scientific thinking and overall intellectualism which impacts us today.
It's just under 200 pages and worth reading, if you stumble across a copy.
May 19, 2021
A set of political essays arranged into a book-style thesis.
Interesting to read Mills' perspective, calling attention to the danger of the cold war written in the midst of it. The opinions are clear and interesting; many ideas are relevant even to this day, and others didn't age nearly as well.
The book is valuable as a window into the anxieties of the cold war, and an example of cold-war era American political speech which seeks to minimalize nationalism and the villainization of the USSR in an effort to simmer expectations of all-out war.
Interesting to read Mills' perspective, calling attention to the danger of the cold war written in the midst of it. The opinions are clear and interesting; many ideas are relevant even to this day, and others didn't age nearly as well.
The book is valuable as a window into the anxieties of the cold war, and an example of cold-war era American political speech which seeks to minimalize nationalism and the villainization of the USSR in an effort to simmer expectations of all-out war.
October 16, 2009
Written in '58, yet relevant today. Maybe helped inspire Einsenhower's speach warning of the Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex. Analyizes US society.
April 20, 2015
Mill's first half of the book (explaining the problems) is brilliant. But he falters a little bit in coming up with solutions.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews