C. Wright Mills and the Ending of Violence

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction: Conflict, Violence and Peace

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 1-15

3. C. Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 17-44

4. The Historical Specificity of the Peace Process

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 45-70

5. Individual Biographical Experiences and Peace

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 71-107

6. The Intersection of Politics and the Social Structure

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 109-150

7. Conclusion: The Sociological Imagination and the Peace Process

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 151-178

8. Back Matter

   Pages 179-197

   PDF

This book has two aims: to clarify the meaning of C. Wright Mills's depiction of the sociological imagination; and to use this to develop a sociological framework that assists in understanding the process by which communal violence has ended in Northern Ireland and South Africa. The contrast between these two societies is a familiar one, but the book is novel by developing an explanatory framework based on Mills's 'sociological imagination'. This model merges developments in the two countries at the individual, social structural and political arenas in order to account for the emergence of their peace processes.

• conflict
• development
• novel
• politics
• sociology
• violence

'I found [Brewer's work] full of interest and have certainly learned a great deal from it. The idea of drawing upon and applying Mills to [this] field of study is one which I liked and it works...a scholarly piece of work on a timely topic.' - John Eldridge, Professor of Sociology, University of Glasgow, UK

'There is an inevitable tension between writing about C. Wright Mills and doing the kind of comparative analysis done here...it works. I ended up with a much better understanding of what Mills was on about [and] the Northern Ireland-South Africa comparison worked very well. I learnt a lot.' - David McCrone, Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, UK

• Queen’s University Belfast, UK

  John D. Brewer

JOHN D. BREWER is Professor of Sociology at the Queen's University of Belfast. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1998. Visiting appointments have been held at Yale University, St John's College, Oxford, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, and the Australian National University in Canberra. This is his thirteenth book.

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