One of the most brilliantly original of American pragmatists, George Herbert Mead published surprisingly few major papers and not a single book during his lifetime. Yet his influence on American sociology and social psychology since World War II has been exceedingly strong. This volume is a revised and enlarged edition of the book formerly published under the title The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. It contains selections from Mead's posthumous books: Mind, Self, and Society; Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century; The Philosophy of the Act; and The Philosophy of the Present, together with an incisive, newly revised, introductory essay by Anselm Strauss on the importance of Mead for contemporary social psychology. "Required reading for the social scientist."—Milton L. Barron, Nation

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) is a central, founding figure of modern sociology, comparable to Karl Marx and Max Weber. Mead's early work, prior to his posthumous publications that appeared after 1932, is believed to be a series of articles contemporary scholarship defines as disconnected. A previously unknown, never published set of galleys for a book of essays by Mead, written between 1892 and 1910, unites these articles into a logical perspective. Essays on Social Psychology, Mead's "first" book, clearly locates him within a significantly different tradition and network than documented in his posthumous volumes. The discovery of this work is a major scholarly event. Instead of being abstract and unemotional, as some scholars argue, Mead's early scholarship focused on the significance of emotions, instincts, and childhood as well as political issues underlying political problems in Chicago. During these early years, he was involved with the emerging Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago which was then the center of progressive education. These early topics, interpretations, and scholarly networks are dramatically different in these writings from those of Mead as a mature scholar. They demonstrate that he was clearly making a transition from psychology to social psychology at a time when the latter was in its infancy. Mary Jo Deegan, a world-renowned Meadian scholar, has comprehensively edited this volume, footnoting now obscure references and authors. Her introduction explains how this previously lost manuscript affects contemporary Meadian scholarship and how it reflects the city and times in which he lived. Unlike the posthumous volumes, assembled from lecture notes, Essays in Social Psychology is the only book actually written by Mead and challenges most current scholarship on him. The selections are highly readable, surprisingly timely yet historically significant. Psychologists, sociologists, and educators will find it immensely important. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) taught at the University of Chicago from 1894 to 1931. His posthumous volumes are The Philosophy of the Present, Mind, Self, and Society, and The Philosophy of the Act. Mary Jo Deegan is professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is the author of Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918, named by Choice as among the outstanding academic books of 1989.

First published in 1956 under title: the social psychology of George Herbert Mead. Bibliography: p. [355]-358.

This book offers a new look at Mead's concept of society, in an attempt to reconstruct its significance for sociological theory. Chapter 1 offers a critical genealogical reading of writings, from early articles to the latest books, where Mead articulates his views on social reform, social psychology, and the gradual theorization of self and society. Chapter 2 pays attention to the phylogenetic and ontogenetic processes at work in both the self and society, by comparing Mead's social psychology with Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Chapter 3 brings together all the elements that are part of the structures of self and society within a topological and dialectical schematization of their respective and mutual relations. Chapter 4 is devoted to the passage of Mead's views from social psychology to sociology, with a critical look at Herbert Blumer's developments in symbolic interactionism as the presumed main legitimate heir of Mead's social psychology. Chapter 5 examines how Mead's general philosophical views fit within the new epistemological context of contemporary society based on communication and debates on postmodernity.

This book brings together some of the finest recent critical and expository work on Mead, written by American and European thinkers from diverse traditions. For English-speaking audiences it provides an introduction to recent European work on Mead. The essays reveal the richness of Mead's thought, and will stimulate those who have thought about him from very specific vantage points (behaviorism, symbolic interactionism, pragmatism, etc.) to consider him in new ways.