Middletown

It is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of sociology's most prominent American figures under surveillance. Using documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, this volume portrays the FBI's stalking of the sociological imagination, offering a detailed account of its investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology. This groundbreaking analysis of a previously hidden chapter of American intellectual history suggests that the activities of Hoover and the FBI marginalized critical sociologists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, suppressed the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction.

Grimes provides an overview and critique of the major theories, conceptualizations, and measurements of class inequality, drawing exclusively on scholarly literature published by American social scientists in the 20th century. The volume proposes a framework for interpreting and understanding the theories and methodologies used by scholars to study class inequality, posits two "schools" of sociological theory-order and conflict, and concludes that there is evidence of a "convergence" among contemporary perspectives on class inequality.

This volume examines the analysis that was designed to map the development of the television family and assess its current state and, at the same time, to provide insight into the tangled relationships between fictional and real family life. In order to do this, the investigation examines the evolution of the American family, paying special attention to the postwar family, which is not only used recurrently as a benchmark for assessing the performance of modern families but also constituted television's first generation of families. The investigation also traces the evolution of the popular family in vaudeville, comics, and radio. However, the primary focus of the examination is the development of the television family, from families, such as the Nelsons, Andersons, and Cleavers, to more contemporary families, such as the Huxtables, Conners, and Taylors. The unit of analysis for the investigation is the relationship rather than the individual. Hence, the book deals with the portrayal of spousal, parent-child, and sibling relationships and how those portrayals differ across time and across groups defined by ethnicity, gender, and age. Moreover, the relational analysis is expansive so that television family relationships are examined in regard to power and affect, performance, and satisfaction and stability. Television Families provides a thorough summary and critical review of extant research, designed to promote informed classroom discussion. At the same time, it advances a number of hypotheses and recommendations and, as such, is intended to influence subsequent theory and research in the area. The book is intended for senior undergraduate students, graduate students, and television and family researchers.