Introduction

George Herbert Mead is the only sociological classic who never wrote a book. In 1911, he came close to publishing his first book. But at the last minute, with already the galley proofs in his hands, he changed his mind. He kept writing regularly for scientific journals, for edited books and newspapers, but he never wrote himself a book. Neither did he collect his numerous writings in book form. The implications of this circumstance were serious. For the most part, the texts that granted Mead a place next to Marx, Durkheim and Weber in the sociological canon were not written by Mead himself. Consider the famous Mind, Self, and Society (1934). The transcript that would later be used by Charles Morris to construct this volume is the work of a professional stenographer, W.T. Lillie, who was hired to record Mead’s offering of his popular social psychology course in the winter of 1928. The same is true of Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1936), based upon stenographic notes from a course with the same title. The Philosophy of the Act (1938) is not much different either. Only the Philosophy of the Present, based upon Mead’s Carus Lectures of 1930, can be safely attributed to Mead. These books, in particular Mind, Self, and Society, have been the entry-point to Mead’s ideas for every generation ever since. In a recent social theory reader, which included selections from over a dozen authors from Marx to Foucault, the only classic whose writings were not his own was Mead. It is nothing short from remarkable that almost 80 years after Mead’s death social scientists still lack a comprehensive volume that convey his ideas in the first person. This is what this anthology is set to accomplish