Awards

• Winner of the John Hope Franklin Prize.

Overview

Erving Goffman and the Cold War presents a provocative new reading of the work of sociologist Erving Goffman. Instead of viewing him as a “marginal man” or academic outsider, Gary D. Jaworski explores Goffman as a social theorist of the Cold War. Goffman was deeply connected to both the ethos of his time and to a range of cold warriors and their critics, such as Edward A. Shils, Thomas C. Schelling, and the researchers on “brainwashing” associated with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, among others. Chapters on loyalty, betrayal, secrecy, strategy, interrogation, provocation, and aggression concretely illustrate these connections. Erving Goffman and the Cold War shows that Goffman was much more than a microsociologist of mundane life; he was a perceptive analyst of the Cold War America.

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9781666936803

Table of Contents

Reviews

"""Erving Goffman and the Cold War is an assessment of Erving Goffman's relevance as an observer of the ways large-scale geo-political tensions shape the everyday behaviors of ordinary human beings. Jaworski's superb study is unique, against the grain of Goffman scholarship, meticulously researched and overdue. A must read for anyone wondering why sociology lost its relevance after the 1960s.""--Dean MacCannell, University of California, Davis ""Jaworski's fresh, lucid, and very informative sociology of knowledge biography is a most welcome addition! This book is a pleasure to read and offers fresh insights into Goffman's most productive period. It draws on a wide array of archival, popular culture, and scholarly sources to reveal the backstage temporal and personal roots of much of Goffman's work. Would that all requested blurbs were so easy to write!""--Gary T. Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ""Gary D. Jaworski's meticulously researched book takes Goffman scholarship into invigorating new territory. Erving Goffman and the Cold War shows how key elements of Goffman's sociology can be understood as a complex engagement with and response to the preoccupations and fears of Cold War America. This richly documented book will transform our understanding of the origins and contours of Goffman's thought.""--Greg Smith, University of Salford ""In a beautifully conceived piece of historical scholarship and theoretical exploration, Jaworski rescues Goffman's work and reputation from decades of facile misreadings as an ahistorical sociology of exclusively microsocial interactions by repositioning his thinking in the circumstances of its production: the American Cold War ethos of security, loyalty, secrecy, deception, and betrayal. Here we see two acute analytical minds at work: the sociologist-philosopher of American Cold War culture and his commentator, interpreter, and sure guide through the labyrinthine world of Goffmania.""--Guy Oakes, Monmouth University ""It's about time a scholar goes for the big frame around Goffman, setting him and his work in the larger emotional context of his time. Jaworski's Erving Goffman and the Cold War is going to be a disrupter in the quiet world of Goffman studies: it is boldly innovative, full of archival discoveries, and astutely written up. A fascinating read for anybody interested in the mapping of intellectual landscapes.""--Yves Winkin, University of Liège ""Jaworski presents a fresh, informative, and engaging analysis of the work of Erving Goffman, which is of much relevance in a time of renewed Cold War. Prior to Goffman, sociologists had neglected the strategic dynamics of loyalty, secrecy, espionage, provocation and aggression. Challenging non-political views of Goffman, Jaworski situates Goffman in a formative context of 'ideological battles and global threats, ' and details Goffman's links to military and national intelligence networks. The book also provides a valuable historical sketch of US social science and scientists in the early post-World-War-II era.""--Lawrence T. Nichols, editor of The American Sociologist"

"""It's about time a scholar goes for the big frame around Goffman, setting him and his work in the larger emotional context of his time. Jaworski's Erving Goffman and the Cold War is going to be a disrupter in the quiet world of Goffman studies: it is boldly innovative, full of archival discoveries, and astutely written up. A fascinating read for anybody interested in the mapping of intellectual landscapes.""--Yves Winkin, University of Liège"

Author Information

Gary D. Jaworski is an independent scholar in New York City. The author of Georg Simmel and the American Prospect (SUNY Press, 1997), Jaworski is former professor of sociology at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ.

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