The Chicago School

The Chicago School of Sociology has sometimes been applauded for the originality and special insights of its practitioners as pioneers of a new professional discipline. By contrast, this book emphasises the rootedness of the Chicago School within a well-established tradition of American liberalism. Through a series of critical expositions of its leading writers ranging from Albion Small to Morris Janowitz, Dennis Smith argues that both the strengths and the weaknesses of Chicago Sociology have derived from tensions within and between American capitalism and American liberalism. The distinctive social and intellectual character of American liberal capitalism as expressed in Chicago Sociology is explored with reference to contemporaries in Chicago such as Veblen and Dewey and European movements such as the Frankfurt School.