Radical Nomad

Not long after co-authoring The Port Huron Statement, the charter document of sixties activism, Tom Hayden completed, at the University of Michigan, an intellectual biography of eminent scholar C. Wright Mills. It is published here for the first time, along with newly written essays by Hayden and by prominent social theorists who are experts on Mills and his ongoing influence today. Hayden cogently traces Mills’ scholarship and his progressive activism to the events and thinkers of earlier generations. Ideas in major books by Mills (The Power Elite, New Men of Power, White Collar, Character and Social Structure, The Sociological Imagination) can now be better understood in light of the influences of Mills during and before his time, including the impact of two world wars, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the failures of the Soviet state, and changing relations between workers and industry in America and worldwide. The book thus brings us a new and much more complete understanding Mills’s political theories and philosophy. With only one previous biography of Mills in print, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of C. Wright Mills in American intellectual life.