Letters and autobiographical writings / C. Wright Mills ; edited by Kathryn Mills with Pamela Mills ; introduction by Dan Wakefield.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

PrefaceRemembrance by Kathryn MillsMy Father Haunts Me by Pamela MillsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Dan Wakefield I. Growing Up in Texas, 1916-1939II. Graduate Studies: Madison, Wisconsin, 1939 - 1941III. Starting Out: College Park, Maryland, 1941 - 1945IV. Taking it Big: New York, New York, 1945 - 1956V. An American Aboriginal Goes Cosmopolitan: Europe, New York, and Mexico, 1956-1960VI. The Last Two Years: New York and Cuba, 1960-1962ChronologyBooks by C. Wright Mills: American and Foreign editionsNotes on Selected CorrespondentsAbout the EditorsGlossary of AbbreviationsIndex

Annotation One of the leading public intellectuals of twentieth-century America and a pioneering and brilliant social scientist, C. Wright Mills left a legacy of interdisciplinary and hard-hitting work including two books that changed the way many people viewed their lives and the structure of power in the United States: "White Collar" (1951) and "The Power Elite" (1956). Mills persistently challenged the status quo within his profession--as in "The Sociological Imagination" (1959)--and within his country, until his untimely death in 1962. This collection of letters and writings, edited by his daughters, allows readers to see behind Mills's public persona for the first time. Mills's letters to prominent figures--including Saul Alinsky, Daniel Bell, Lewis Coser, Carlos Fuentes, Hans Gerth, Irving Howe, Dwight MacDonald, Robert K. Merton, Ralph Miliband, William Miller, David Riesman, and Harvey Swados--are joined by his letters to family members, letter-essays to an imaginary friend in Russia, personal narratives by his daughters, and annotations drawing on published and unpublished material, including the FBI file on Mills