This inaugural volume of the Pine Forge Press Social Thinkers series provides a concise introduction to the work, life, and influences of C. Wright Mills. Accessible and provocative, this book closely examines the writings and ideas of C. Wright Mills that now, over half a century later, remain crucial in better understanding today's world. The book's primary focus is on two of his lifelong intellectual concerns: the interrelationship between social structure and personality and the bureaucratization of modern society and the power relations it produces. The book is ideal for use as a self-contained volume or in conjunction with sociological theory textbooks.

Sociologist, social critic, and political radical C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) was one of the leading public intellectuals in twentieth century America. Offering an important new understanding of Mills and the times in which he lived, Radical Ambition challenges the captivating caricature that has prevailed of him as a lone rebel critic of 1950s complacency. Instead, it places Mills within broader trends in American politics, thought, and culture. Indeed, Daniel Geary reveals that Mills shared key assumptions about American society even with those liberal intellectuals who were his primary opponents. The book also sets Mills firmly within the history of American sociology and traces his political trajectory from committed supporter of the Old Left labor movement to influential herald of an international New Left. More than just a biography, Radical Ambition illuminates the career of a brilliant thinker whose life and works illustrate both the promise and the dilemmas of left-wing social thought in the United States.

With renowned international contributors and expert contributions from a range of specialisms, this book will appeal to academics, students and researchers of sociology.

C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) transformed the independent American Left in the 1940s and 1950s. Often challenging the established ideologies and approaches of fellow leftist thinkers, Mills was central to creating and developing the idea of the "public intellectual" in postwar America and laid the political foundations for the rise of the New Left in the 1960s. This book reconstructs this icon's formation and the new dimension of American political life that followed his work.

Aimed at a generation of students and activists who have probably encountered very little of his work, this is a thoughtful and engaging exploration of the critical social thought of C. Wright Mills.