Ibm Plus Reality Plus Humanism = Sociology.

In Our Time, What Is At Issue Is The Very Nature Of Man, The Image We Have Of His Limits And Possibilities As A Man. History Is Not Yet Done With Its Exploration Of The Limits And Meanings Of Human Nature.

The Economy - Once A Great Scatter Of Small Productive Units In Autonomous Balance, Has Become Dominated By Two Or Three Hundred Giant Corporations, Administratively And Politically Interrelated... The Political Order, Once A Decentralized Set Of Several Dozen States With A Weak Spinal Cord, Has Become A Centralized Executive Establishment Which Has Taken Up Into Itself Many Powers Previously Scattered... The Military Order, Once A Slim Establishment In A Context Of Distrust Fed By State Militia, Has Become The Largest And Most Expensive Feature Of Government.

Seldom Aware Of The Intricate Connection Between The Patterns Of Their Own Lives And The Course Of World History, Ordinary People Do Not Usually Know What This Connection Means For The Kind Of People They Are Becoming And For The Kind Of History-making In Which They Might Take Part.

The More We Understand What Is Happening In The World, The More Frustrated We Often Become, For Our Knowledge Leads To Feelings Of Powerlessness. We Feel That We Are Living In A World In Which The Citizen Has Become A Mere Spectator Or A Forced Actor, And That Our Personal Experience Is Politically Useless And Our Political Will A Minor Illusion.

Neither The Life Of An Individual Nor The History Of A Society Can Be Understood Without Understanding Both.