White Collar: The American Middle Classes

In print for fifty years, White Collar by C. Wright Mills is considered a standard on the subject of the new middle class in twentieth-century America. This landmark volume demonstrates how the conditions and styles of middle class life—originating from elements of both the newer lower and upper classes—represent modern society as a whole.
By examining white-collar life, Mills aimed to learn something about what was becoming more typically "American" than the once-famous Western frontier character. He painted a picture instead of a society that had evolved into a business-based milieu, viewing America instead as a great salesroom, an enormous file, and a new universe of management.
Russell Jacoby, author of The End of Utopia and The Last Intellectuals, contributes a new Afterword to this edition, in which he reflects on the impact White Collar had at its original publication and considers what it means to our society today.
"A book that persons of every level of the white collar pyramid should read and ponder. It will alert them to their condition for their better salvation."-Horace M. Kaellen, The New York Times (on the first edition)

Now a standard on the subject of the new middle class in 20th century America originating from elements of both the newer lower and upper classes.

A previous edition is cited in Books for College Libraries, 3d ed.. Mills' (formerly sociology, Columbia U.) essential study is reprinted here with a new afterword by Russell Jacoby (history, UCLA). The story of the rise of the middle class, its lifestyle, ideology, transfer of skills, and class issues remain just as pertinent today as when Oxford published the first edition in 1951. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR

The late C. Wright Mills, former Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, was a leading critic of modern American civilization. His other books include The Sociological Imagination and The Power Elite (both OUP). Russell Jacoby is Professor of History at UCLA and a contributing writer to The Nation, The New York Times, and Harper's.