On Liberty, Society, and Politics: The Essential Essays of William Graham Sumner

by William Graham Sumner

Book Overview

William Graham Sumner is the "forgotten man" of American intellectual history. Too often dismissed or only superficially understood, his interpretations are now attracting closer scrutiny and appreciation. He is remembered chiefly as one of the founding fathers of sociology.

Sumner's analysis of the relation between the individual and society is deeper and more sophisticated than is commonly thought. For students of American history and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865971013
• ISBN13: 9780865971011
• Release Date: June 1992
• Publisher: Liberty Fund
• Length: 466 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.8"
• Age Range: 18 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Postsecondary to Grade 5

Customer Reviews

The Genius that was Sumner

This collection of essays personify the well-cultivated mind and most-perfect wisdom of William Graham Sumner. Distinctive historical analysis, and rigorous research by the editor make this a cogent as well as enduring collection of essays by this judicious American philosopher. These essays will give the reader a vigorous conceptualization of sociology, political-philosophy, anthropology, economics, and history. His sound elucidation of the political struggle of democracy and plutocracy is engrossing to say the least, ostensibly because it has reached its apex in the present-era. "Motives and purposes are in the brain and heart of man. Consequences are in the world of fact. The former are infected by the human ignorance, folly, self-deception, and passion; the latter are sequences of cause and effect dependent upon the nature of the forces at work. When, therefore, a man acts, he sets forces in motion, and the consequences are such as those forces produce under the conditions existing. They are entirely independent of any notion, will, wish, or intention in the mind of any man or men. Consequences are facts in the world of experience." - William Graham Sumner (From: Purposes and Consequences) Essay list: I / Preacher 1. Individualism [1871] 2. Tradition and Progress [1872] 3. Solidarity of the Human Race [1873] II / Educational Reformer 4. The "Ways and Means" for Our Colleges [1870] 5. What Our Boys Are Reading [1878] 6. Our Colleges before the Country [1884] 7. Discipline [1880 or 1889] III / Polemicist 8. Republican Government [1877] 9. Presidential Elections and Civil-Service Reform [1881] 10. The Argument against Protective Taxes [1881] 11. The Philosophy of Strikes [1883] 12. The Family Monopoly [1888] 13. Democracy and Plutocracy [1888-1889] 14. The Concentration of Wealth: Its Economic Justification [1902] IV / Social Theorist 15. Socialism [1880s] 16. Sociology [1881] 17. The Forgotten Man [1883] 18. The Survival of the Fittest [1884] 19. Laissez-Faire [1886] 20. The State as an "Ethical Person" [1887] 21. Liberty [1887-1889] 22. The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over [1894] V / Anti-Imperialist 23. The Fallacy of Territorial Expansion [1896] 24. The Conquest of the United States by Spain [1898] 25. War [1903] VI / Sociologist 26. Purposes and Consequences [ca. 1900-1906] 27. The Scientific Attitude of Mind [1905] 28. Mores and Statistics [ca. 1900-1906] 29. Science and Mores [ca. 1900-1906] 30. On Mores and Progress [ca. 1900-1906] 31. Folkways [1906] VII / Prophet 32. The Bequests of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth [1901] 33. The Mores of the Present and the Future [1909]